


Full Time

by fourteencandles (thingsbaker)



Series: Slumber Parties [2]
Category: Entourage
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 04:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3755095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsbaker/pseuds/fourteencandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric's ex-wife calls and asks Eric if they can meet on a Tuesday afternoon, while the kids are in school, to talk about something important. It’s her week with them, so Eric’s been spending most of his time at Vince’s place. In fact, he’s sitting in Vince’s bed when she calls, and he sees the wariness in Vince’s eyes when he greets her. “Yeah,” he says, resting his hand on Vince’s thigh as he talks, “I’ll be there.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2008, where it was ably beta-read by justabi and silviakundera! This comes after "Come Back To Me" by a few months.

Tina calls and asks Eric if they can meet on a Tuesday afternoon, while the kids are in school, to talk about something important.  It’s her week with them, so Eric’s been spending most of his time at Vince’s place.  In fact, he’s sitting in Vince’s bed when she calls, and he sees the wariness in Vince’s eyes when he greets her.  “Yeah,” he says, resting his hand on Vince’s thigh as he talks, “I’ll be there.”  
  
He hangs up, and Vince says, “What’s that about?”  
  
Eric shrugs.  “Fuck if I know,” he says.  “She just said something important.”  He leans back, rests his head against Vince’s biceps.  Before Tina called — and before Eric had to take the call, because a midday call from his ex-wife could mean one of the kids was sick or hurt — they’d been watching TV and making out a little.  Eric, in fact, took the afternoon off from reading scripts and dealing with his two other clients just to do this.  Now Vince looks jumpy; the mood is gone.  “She’s probably marrying Gary,” Eric says, and Vince glances over.  “Hey, I’m all for it.  She marries him, that’s less I pay in support.”  
  
“Awesome,” Vince says.  He rolls onto his side, so he’s looking down at Eric.  Eric smiles to show he means it, that he’s not really worried.  Hell, Tina’s been living with the guy – or rather, the guy has been living with her, in Eric’s old house, for something like three years now.  He’s not sure why they haven’t gotten married already, but he suspects it has something to do with Gary’s older children.  
  
Vince smiles back.  “Less in alimony, more you can spend on me, then.”  
  
Eric laughs.  “Yeah, you’re pretty high maintenance,” he says, and he thinks, welcome back, mood, and lets Vince kiss him.  
  


* * *

  
  
The next day he drives out to Pasadena to meet Tina at a coffee shop near her office.  She’s waiting inside, and Eric looks at her through the window for a moment, feeling a now-familiar mix of anger and regret.  Tina’s attractive, still, slim with curly hair and a nice tan, and today she’s dressed up in a black skirt and a red blouse open three buttons at the collar, just enough to allow a peek of the curve of her breast.  His ex-wife.  Every once in a while, it’s like this, still: every so often, just seeing her makes him feel like a failure, like a man who couldn’t hang on to a woman like this.  He clears his throat and pushes into the shop.  
  
“Eric.”  She gestures him over.  “I ordered for you,” she says, and that feels weird.    
  
He takes the cappuccino anyway, says a stiff thanks.  It’s made how he likes it: a little dry, with one sugar.  She got the cappuccino maker, because she got the house; Eric mostly drinks black coffee, now.  “So, uh, what’s up?” he asks, getting right to it.  No need for small talk anymore.  “Are the kids —”  
  
“They’re fine,” she says.  She’s looking right at him, and he notices the thin lines around her eyes.  It’s been four years since their divorce.  “I wanted to tell you, ah, Gary and I, we’re getting married.”  
  
Eric nods.  “I kind of thought maybe,” he says.  He sits back, feeling a strange blankness.  He thinks he should congratulate her, but he can’t quite get that out.  Instead he takes a sip of coffee, then says, “So, I guess he’s moving in with you?”  
  
“Actually, no,” Tina says.  “He’s been offered a job in San Diego.”   
  
Eric sets his coffee down.  “You’re moving to San Diego,” he says, and Tina nods.  “You’re — you can’t take the kids, _my_  kids, to fucking San Diego.  I — how will I —”  
  
“Eric,” she says, “I’m not asking to.  I know that’s not — that’s not part of our agreement.”  She swallows, and her eyes look a little moist when she meets his.  He hasn’t seen her cry since the divorce.  “I’m moving with him,” she says.  “It’s — it’s an important opportunity for him.  He’ll head his own department, and soon he’ll be making twice what he does here.”  
  
“You’re — “  Eric shakes his head.  He grabs the coffee again just for something to do with his hands.  “What are you saying, exactly.”  
  
“I want — I don’t want to leave the kids, but right now, with Gary’s job like it is, and —” She pauses, then says, “and I’m pregnant,” and that actually does feel like a blow.  Eric can remember clearly both times Tina told him she was expecting with their kids, how excited he was, how happy.  Now, he feels shock and a little pain and then a heavy weight on his shoulders, something between sadness and bitterness.  “I need to be with him,” she says.  
  
Eric nods and wonders if he’s coming off as robotic as he feels.  “Just tell me what you’re asking.”  
  
So she explains it in a halting, strangely emotional voice: She wants Eric to take full custody of the kids, starting after Christmas, with the understanding that they’ll visit her at least one weekend a month.  “And they can come out in the summer, too,” she says.  “And maybe — I don’t know, maybe if they like it, we could talk about them staying with me during the next school year.”  
  
“You want them to choose between us?” Eric asks.  
  
“I want the same thing you want, Eric,” Tina says, sounding very tired.  “I want them to be happy.”  
  
Eric rubs his neck and concentrates on the table, not looking at her.  He’s not prepared for this.  Their current arrangement, where Eric has the kids one week, Tina the next, has been working pretty well for the last four years.  He gets to see his kids regularly, and he gets to have his life with Vince — work and play — around that.  The arrangement has also allowed him some flexibility in his scheduling, so that when he’s needed to be away for a while to film with Vince or to handle things with his other clients, Tina has kept the kids, switched weeks with him, that kind of thing.  Now, he’s not sure how he’ll work things like that.  He’s not sure what the alternative is — could he just tell her not to go?  There aren’t hospitals Gary could work in somewhere in L.A.?  He looks up and is surprised to see Tina’s expression has changed, turned somehow harder.  
  
“Tina, you’re — you’re really springing this on me,” he says.  “I don’t know what to say.”  
  
She sighs.  “Say yes, Eric.  I know he’s probably a great lay, but these are your kids we’re talking about.”  
  
“Hey,” he says sharply, and Tina rolls her eyes.  
  
“Please.  He’s in the background every time I call, no matter what time of day, and you’re never at your place when I’ve got the kids.”  
  
“You never understood how things work for me,” Eric says.  “I have this job —”  
  
“Also, he told me he was in love with you when I was pregnant with Katie.”  Eric flinches, and Tina smirks.  “We made a deal, that he wouldn’t try to seduce you away and I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.”  
  
“Jesus,” Eric says.  His head is fucking spinning.  If he sits here any longer, she’ll probably reveal who shot JFK.  He rubs his temples and thinks, One thing at a time.  
  
She taps the table.  “So —”  
  
“Yes,” he says.  All he can think, right now, is that this is something he’s not going to get wrong.  He’s going to be a good fucking father if it’s the only thing he does well.  “They can, of course, I’ll take them, I want to.”  
  
“Well, well,” she says.  “You put someone ahead of Vince for once.  Bravo, Eric.”  
  
He looks up at her and all he feels is anger.  No regret.  “Fuck you,” he says.  “I’ve always put the kids first.”  
  
“Really.”  
  
“Do you have amnesia or something?  I didn’t ask for the divorce,” he says, and she looks away.  “I never would have.”  
  
“That’s probably true,” she says, pushing her chair back.  “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t somewhat responsible.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, laughing harshly, “right, I made you fuck some other guy.”  
  
She gives him a flatly unhappy look.  “You started it.”  
  
“What the —”  
  
“Do you really think we were happy?”  
  
“I was,” he says.  It hurts, costs him something, to admit that.  
  
“You loved me,” she says, and it’s strangely mocking.    
  
“I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t.”  
  
“Ha,” she sneers.  “You were married to him long before you were married to me.”  Her eyes are filled with accusation and anger and hurt.  
  
Eric stands up.  His hands are shaking.  He wants to curse again, but people are already looking at them.  “I’ll pick the kids up Sunday,” he says, his voice throaty.  He hears her call his name, but he walks out of the café anyway, doesn’t look back.  His car is across the street at the meters and he starts it and pulls out too fast, gets a honk from another driver, but he doesn’t care.  He just drives, not even sure where he’s going except away.  All this fucking time and she’s blaming  _him_  for the divorce?  It ripped his heart out when she left.  He spent months at Vince’s place, trying to figure out where he went wrong, trying to get his head back on straight.  And yeah, at the end of that, he ended up figuring some other stuff out — figured out that he wanted Vince, for instance — but that was a long time away from his marriage.  That was after she left him, after she threatened to make him fight for custody, after she wanted half of his paycheck, after she took his name off of hers.  After she broke his heart.  
  
He finds himself on the freeway, making all the right turns for the place he usually goes when he’s feeling messed up: Vince’s house.  And that’s not a bad idea, he realizes, because he probably needs to talk with Vince about what Tina said, anyway.  If they really made some weird deal when she was pregnant — Jesus.  Everything’s a mess.  
  
At Vince’s place, he lets himself in and he hears R&B music playing.  He follows the sound to the kitchen.  Vince is standing by the microwave, reading a copy of the  _Times_ , while something spins inside.  “Yo,” he says, smiling across at Eric, looking completely relaxed and happy to see him.  And Eric suddenly doesn’t want that to go away; he doesn’t want to start fighting with Vince, or with anyone, not right now.  Not after Tina.  
  
“Hey.”  Eric drops his bag in the same place he always does, next to the door, and then walks to the fridge.  He gets out a beer, then leans on the island, across from Vince.  “What are you making?”  
  
“Mac and cheese,” Vince says.  “From a box.  You want some?”  
  
Eric nods and sips his beer.  It’s cold and bitter and he closes his eyes as he swallows.  Vince stops next to him and elbows him in the ribs.  “Come on, no joke about raising three kids?” he asks, and Eric sighs and sets his beer down.  “Hey, what’s up?”  
  
He looks up at Vince, who’s giving him a puzzled smile.  Eric cups his jaw and tips Vince’s head down, and Vince kisses him.  The microwave dings in the background, and Vince draws back, grinning.  “See, that’s more like it,” he says, and pulls fully away from Eric.  While he’s stirring everything together, Eric picks up his beer and takes two fast swallows.  He pretends to skim the newspaper while Vince messes with the macaroni.  The weird thing is, he thinks she’s maybe right about him.  The way he feels about Vince — it’s something else entirely from how it was with Tina.  Something bigger.  Something better.  Maybe he was holding back.  
  
“Full service kitchen tonight, man,” Vince says, handing Eric a bowl.  “I’ve even got bread somewhere.”  
  
Eric says thanks and follows Vince to the living room.  They eat in front of the television, Vince laughing at the "ET" report that has Drew Barrymore dating the supporting actor from Vince’s last movie, a guy Vince swears is gay.  “Not that I know from experience,” he says, patting Eric’s leg, then leaving his hand there.  
  
“You better not,” Eric says, and he leans forward to set his empty bowl beside Vince’s.  Vince puts his hands on Eric’s shoulders and starts to rub, and Eric lets his head fall forward.  “God,” he groans.  
  
“Every time you see her, you turn into a little ball of tension,” he says, his thumbs making soothing circles on Eric’s neck.  “What’d she want this time?”  
  
“You won’t even believe it,” Eric says.   
  
“Try me.”  
  
He nods and turns, letting Vince’s hands fall away.  “She’s moving to San Diego with Gary.”  
  
Vince’s mouth drops open.  “What?  Seriously?”  Eric nods.  “Does she think she’s taking the kids?”  
  
“No, actually.  Or, well, maybe next year.”  He rubs his own neck, feeling himself getting tense again.  “She asked me to take them full time.”  
  
“Whoa,” Vince says, and he sits back against the couch.  
  
“Yeah, whoa.”  After a few seconds of silence, he looks back at Vince.  “I know, it messes things up for us.”  
  
“But you’ve got to do it,” Vince says.  “I mean, they’re you’re kids, of course you’ve got to.”  
  
Eric laughs.  “Jesus, I love you,” he says, and Vince grins.  
  
“It’s gonna be OK, E,” he says.  His arms wrap around Eric from behind and Vince rests his head on Eric’s shoulder.  “Everything’s gonna work out.  You’ll figure it out.  You always do.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eric says, rubbing Vince’s arm.  He can guess already where this conversation is headed.  Vince has wanted to tell the kids for a while now.  And it’s not that Eric thinks there’s something wrong with how they are, it’s not that he’s ashamed — which is what Vince has accused him of in their worst arguments — it’s more that Eric isn’t ready to complicate his kids’ lives any more than he already has.  The kids already live this weird, fractured life, zinging back and forth between Tina’s place and his place, and it’s taken this long for them to establish some equilibrium after the divorce.  Brady’s only just started not wanting Eric to sleep with him when he spends the night, and at Katie’s last school conference, the teacher mentioned that she seemed to finally be getting over her post-divorce shyness.  Now they’re going to shake things up for them again — Jesus.  Eric sighs.  “I can’t really believe she’s doing this,” he says.  
  
Vince is quiet, still just holding on to him.  Eric knows he has a low opinion of Tina, and he’s grateful for how much Vince has managed to hold back in the last few years.  It doesn’t help to hear all the time — like he does from the other guys — how much of a bitch his ex can be.  “Is she giving up custody altogether?” he finally asks.  
  
“No.  Not really.  I mean, we didn’t talk legal stuff, but she wants them to come out once a month and then stay with her over the summer.”  He reaches for his beer, and Vince squeezes him and then pulls away.  When Eric sits back on the couch, Vince’s arm is slung behind him.  “She wanted to talk about them staying with her next year.”  
  
“And you said no, I hope,” Vince says, and Eric shrugs.  “E, all their friends are here.   You’re here.  I’m here.”  Eric smiles a little at that, because the kids really do love Vince.  It’s one of the things that makes it seem possible that, someday, they will tell them, without further fucking them up.  
  
“I didn’t get a chance to really talk it through with her,” he says.  He rubs his forehead, takes another drink.  “She, uh, we sort of got into it.”  
  
“I can imagine.”  
  
“No, not about — she said she thought we were never really happy.”  The words come out before he can even think about them.  “She said she thought — she thinks I put you first, during our whole marriage.”  He turns and looks at Vince, who’s looking down at his knees.  “She says you guys made some kind of deal.”  
  
“Shit,” Vince says, kind of quietly.  
  
“So that’s true.”  Eric takes another sip of his beer.  “You wanna tell me about it?”  
  
Vince shrugs.  “It wasn’t really a deal,” he says.  Eric keeps looking at him.  “She just said, uh, basically she told me to back off and let you have a family.”  
  
Eric sighs.  He closes his eyes.  While he was married, well, sure, there were some times that he felt like he was stealing time from Vince to be with Tina, but there were just as many times that he felt the opposite way.  He remembers his marriage as one long negotiation on where he was supposed to be.  In that way, he doesn’t miss it at all.  Things are a lot easier now.  Not perfect, because he still spends too much time away from his kids, and he still spends too much time away from Vince, but he doesn’t feel bad all the time like he did with Tina.  “And so that’s what you did?”  
  
“I guess,” Vince says.  
  
Eric looks at him.  “You backed off.  Just because she told you to.  Jesus, what, you had a thing for me this whole time and you just sat back?”  
  
Now Vince sighs.  “When we had that talk, she was already pregnant with Katie.  And I hadn’t ever thought about us this way, not really.  Besides, fuck, what, I’m gonna be the guy who makes a pass at his best friend while his baby’s on the way?”  Vince shakes his head.  “We wouldn’t’ve survived that, E.”  
  
It’s annoying when Vince is right about stuff like this.  Eric rolls his eyes, drains his beer, and then sits back on the couch.  “Yeah,” he says, “all right.  But can I ask you something?”  
  
“Clearly,” Vince says, his voice full of dry exasperation.  
  
“This deal.  Is it why you didn’t clue me in earlier that something was fucked up in my marriage?”  
  
Vince looks completely perplexed.  “Honestly, E, I was as surprised as you were when things ended,” he says.  
  
Eric keeps looking at him for a second, but Vince seems to be in earnest.  It’s weird; even now, Eric’s sure there was something he missed, some sign early on that he could have latched on to, some way he could have seen things coming.  Maybe this conversation with Vince was the thing; maybe if he’d known what Tina was thinking from the start, he could’ve negotiated things better.    
  
“Are you mad?” Vince asks, his hand resting lightly on Eric’s shoulder.  
  
“About what?”  
  
“That I didn’t tell you.  About our talk.”  
  
Eric pauses.  His first reaction is to say yes, but parenting has taught him some things.  It’s made him more patient, more thoughtful.  So he takes a minute to think this through.  Sure, if Vince had told him about that conversation, maybe Eric would have done things differently.  The first thing he thinks is, maybe I wouldn’t be divorced now.  But that doesn’t make sense, because still being married would mean not having this thing with Vince.  It might have meant cutting himself off from Vince altogether.  And that doesn’t seem like it was — like it ever could be — a good decision.  
  
“No,” Eric says, finally, and he watches Vince nearly blush with relief.  “Because you know what?  As fucked up as everything is sometimes, I think we’ve got it pretty good, now.”  
  
“At least until the kids move in,” Vince says.  
  
“Yeah.”  Eric nods and settles against Vince.  “At least until then.”  
  


* * *

  
  
A week after Christmas break, Katie and Brady move things over.  There’s not that much to add — they already have duplicates of everything, because if Tina bought them a PlaystationUltimate, Eric had to pick one up, too — and Tina takes some of their stuff on to San Diego with her.  She’s going to get a house there, soon, she promises them, and then says they can come down for a visit whenever they want.  Eric looks away when the kids kiss her good-bye, like he always does.  He doesn’t want the kids to be angry at their mother, he wants them to get along, and yet it hurts, somehow, to see them upset at leaving her.  Selfishly, he wants them on his side, though he’s careful not to ever express it.  Tonight, she kisses them both good-bye and hugs them for an extra long time, and then she walks down the hall to the elevator and it’s just the three of them.  
  
“Come on,” Eric says, putting a hand on each child’s shoulder, leading them back into the condo, not sure whether he should say anything about the tears Katie’s trying to dry from her eyes.  
  
Eric’s been a full-time part-time dad for quite a while, now.  He’s good at it.  He knows the kids’ routines, knows their teachers and their good subjects, knows what they don’t like on their sandwiches.  So it should be easy to say, “Let’s get some dinner,” but tonight feels different.  The door closes and the three of them stand in the entryway, and Eric looks at his kids and his bare essentials condo and understands what’s been creeping up on him for the last couple of months:  He is now a single parent.  
  
He’s not actually single, though, which is part of what makes this whole thing so difficult.  Even now, Vince is probably waiting for a phone call, just to hear how things went with Tina, how things are for the kids.  Eric glances at the clock, rubs his forehead.  “Tell you what, guys,” he says, both kids turning to face him.  “I’m kind of tired, and I don’t have much food around.  You want to order some pizza, maybe see if we can get Uncle Vince to bring over a movie or something?”  
  
“Uncle Vince,” Brady says, and Katie shrugs, but it’s one of her that-sounds-OK-but-I-can’t-say-OK shrugs.  If this is age nine, Eric dreads her teenage years.  
  
“All right,” Eric says.  “Katie, you want to call in the pizza?”  
  
“Where from?”  
  
“You pick.  And let your brother help decide on the toppings.  Get two larges, all right, one -”  
  
“Light on the cheese, no onion, for you and Uncle Vince,” she says, and she and Brady disappear into the kitchen to make the call.  
  
Eric picks up his cell and takes it to the end of the hall, from where he can see the kitchen door.  Vince answers on the second ring.  “Yo.”  
  
“Hey.”  It’s not so unusual for Vince to visit while the kids are around; sometimes, when Eric has them for a weekend, they go over to Vince’s place for a night, so the kids can swim and have their friends over.  “You want, uh, the kids are here, Tina dropped them off, and we were talking about getting some pizza, maybe watching a movie -”  
  
“You inviting me over,” Vince asks, his voice warm, teasing, “or are you asking me to babysit?”  
  
“Just come over,” Eric says.  “And bring something that’s not too scary, you remember last time.”  
  
“Got it,” he says.  They thought  _Jaws_  would be too dated to really scare the kids, but Brady had nightmares for two weeks (and Eric caught hell from Tina over the whole thing).  “Should I bring my sleeping bag?”  
  
Eric sighs.  “You baiting me?”  Tonight, Eric doesn’t have the energy to keep up the fight, and he’s grateful when Vince seems to understand.  
  
“No,” Vince says.  “I’ll see you in a bit, all right?”  
  
He hangs up and Eric stands in the hall, the phone still in his hands.  Just as he predicted, Eric and Vince have had a few difficult discussions about telling the kids since Tina suggested they move in.  He can see the logic in Vince’s dream: how great would it be to spend a nice evening with his kids and then retire to bed with Vince?  But Eric’s sticking to his argument, because he believes it.  There’s too much going on for his kids the way that it is; he’s not going to spring the Daddy Sucks Cock discussion on them anytime soon.  
  
In the kitchen, the pizza is ordered and Katie is pouring them each a glass of root beer.  “Hey, sweetheart, that might be flat,” Eric says.  
  
She looks at him with a slightly amused, slightly annoyed expression that is almost 100 percent stolen from Tina.  “You have nothing in here,” she says, opening the refrigerator door.  
  
“I — I eat out a lot,” Eric says, which is pretty true.  The weeks he doesn’t — the weeks he  _didn’t_ have the kids, he never ate at home.  “But tomorrow, we’ll go shopping and you can get whatever you think we need.  I want this — I mean, this has always been your home, I hope, but I want to make sure we’ve got the stuff you want here.  That it feels like home all the time.”  
  
“Can we get the cereal with the cookies in it?” Brady asks.  
  
“No way, pal,” Eric says.  
  
Katie smiles.  “We can always get it at Uncle Vince’s place,” she says, and Brady smiles, too.  
  


* * *

  
  
Vince shows up with  _The Princess Bride_  and the pizza comes a few minutes later.  “Hey, light on the cheese, thanks, kiddos,” he says, ruffling Brady’s hair.  
  
Brady sits by Vince on the couch, and Katie curls up in the big armchair.  Eric takes the other armchair, which doesn’t have a good angle on the television at all but it’s comfortable enough.  He watches the kids watching the movie, watches Vince laugh in all of the places they’ve laughed for thirty years, and feels that same warm rush that he almost always does when he sees Vince, Katie, and Brady together.  Katie’s fighting sleep by the time the final fights come up, but Eric knows better than to suggest she go to bed early; when Brady dozes off, though, Vince puts an arm around him and says, “What do you think about bed, big man?” and Brady gets up easily and walks off to brush his teeth.  He’s always been a sweet boy, smart and stuck in a comic book half the time.  Eric thinks that Brady is the kind of kid Vince would have been in school, if Vince hadn’t had to worry about getting pummeled in the playground.  Brady goes to Wilshire Day.  It is the safest school on the planet.  Eric knows; he checked.  
  
“What do we have tomorrow?” Vince asks, stretching.  Even nearing forty, he’s just amazing, toned and tan and maybe even hotter than he used to be because he’s so fucking comfortable with himself now.  Eric turns his eyes away when Vince’s T-shirt slides up, because his daughter’s in the room.  
  
“Maybe see Shauna,” Eric says.    
  
“Mm.”  They’re both staring at Katie, who’s got her head propped up on one arm like she’s awake, though her eyes are closed.  Eric catches Vince’s eye, and Vince grins.  Vince leans forward and touches her shoulder, gives her a gentle shake, and she wakes with a start.  
  
“You like the movie?” he asks.  She nods.  “I’m getting ready to take off.”  
  
“Oh.”  She sits up and rubs her face.  “What time is it?”  
  
“Bed time,” Eric says, and she’s just sleepy enough that she nods.  She turns and gives Vince a hug.  
  
“Night, Uncle Vince,” she says, and she hugs Eric too before she goes down the hall.  “Night, Daddy.”  
  
He can’t help it; he smiles a little.  His little girl.  Just yesterday she was learning to jump rope on the grass by Vince’s pool.  Now she has to be half-asleep to call him Daddy.  He looks up at Vince, who raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Walk me out?”  
  
“You really leaving?”  
  
“You have a reason I should stick around?”  
  
Eric rolls his eyes.  “Beer,” he suggests, and Vince smirks, then says OK.  They sit next to each other on the couch to drink, and when both kids’ doors are closed, Eric lets his knee rest against Vince’s.  They talk about the next day, a little: Eric has a meeting with Danielle, his newest client, who’s up for a role in the new Bruce Willis movie but wants a role in the new Paul Greengrass movie.  Vince is meeting his trainer for a morning session, getting in shape for  _After Dark_ , but has the rest of the day free.  They make tentative plans for Eric to pick Vince up on the way to lunch with Shauna, and then Vince gets up, grabs his keys, and leaves.  No good-bye kiss at the door, not even a touch.  When the kids are around, they’re off; that’s always been the deal.  They haven’t figured out yet how things are going to work, since now the kids will be around all the time, but Eric thinks they’ll make do.  They always have before.  Besides, it’s as much for Vince’s benefit as Eric’s; neither of them is ready for Vince to be outed to the media, and they both agree that asking the kids to keep things secret would be a lot.  
  
Eric clears the beer bottles from the coffee table and rinses them out in the kitchen.  He checks on both kids before he goes to his own bed, and is glad to see them sleeping peacefully.  Maybe it won’t be so hard.  It doesn’t take him too long to fall asleep himself.


	2. Chapter 2

Here’s how his days with the kids used to go:  
  
Up at 6:15.  Through the shower and dressed by 6:45.  Wake up Katie and send her through the shower, shave back in his own bathroom.  At 7, wake Brady, send him through the shower.  While he’s showering and Katie’s dressing, get breakfast ready: the little strawberry-flavored oatmeal packets mixed with heated milk, and two small glasses of juice.  Check on Brady to make sure he’s wearing something that loosely matches and that he hasn’t become distracted by a comic book; check on Katie to make sure she’s wearing decent shoes and not the glittery ballet flats or flip-flops.  Round both kids up to the table and get them fed.  When most of the oatmeal is gone, send them back for their bags, put the dishes in the dishwasher, get their lunches from the fridge, and then corral both kids out to the car by 7:30.  Drop both kids off at Wilshire Day by 7:55.    
  
Then, usually, coffee from the corner deli, in the office by 9.  Agency call-backs for his newer clients, studio call-backs on Vince’s behalf.  Scripts to read.  Faxes to file.  Then, maybe a lunch meeting, but never later than 1, and never anywhere where he’d have to drink.  By 4, back to the Wilshire Day grounds, in the long queue of expensive SUVs, and then, finally, back on the road, both kids strapped securely into the back of his car.  Then home, or out to accomplish whatever errands the kids needed, usually the the grocery store or the mall.  Then dinner — Hamburger Helper, pasta, or tacos, usually — and homework.  If no homework, reading, maybe a little TV or computer time, not too much but enough to give Eric a chance to return a few calls and make lunches for the next day.  Then, finally, bedtime, which sometimes meant more reading or a fight over tooth-brushing, but sometimes just meant quiet.  Finally.  A few minutes to watch the news, pick up the toys in the living room, put in a call to Vince, and then a little more work to do, watching the whole time for the telltale glow under Brady’s door that meant he was reading under the covers.  And then, around 11 or midnight, bed, and sleep, so that it could all start again the next morning.  
  
Weekends, the kids slept in, and so did Eric, and keeping that schedule for a week at a time wasn’t a big deal; what he missed in sleep and business during those five days, he made up the next week.  
  
But now: things have changed.  
  
The mornings are still the same.  Two weeks after the kids move in, the alarm goes off at 6:15 on a Thursday morning, just like usual.  They’re still out the door by 7:30, but along the way there are new snags: Katie doesn’t  _really_  like orange juice, so Eric has had to start buying extra milk for her to drink.  He’s drawn the line at the strawberry syrup she wants for it, and is skeptical of her claims that Tina allowed this.  He’s equally skeptical of Brady’s claims that his mom only required baths every three days.  
  
They go to school and Eric goes to work.  There’s suddenly more juggling involved.  He’s on the phone the minute the kids get out of the car, trying to set up meetings to renegotiate a television series contract for his client, Brent.  He talks until the last possible second as he pulls into the Paramount lot, where he’s got a nine o’clock meeting with the new VP for development who he really, really wants to agree to take on Vince’s next project.  Vince is waiting in the lobby with Turtle, and Eric apologizes before he even realizes he’s not late.  His stomach growls on the elevator ride up to the office, and Vince raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Tough morning?”  
  
“No coffee yet,” Eric says, jabbing the third-floor button a few times.  
  
The meeting goes well, despite the occasional embarrassing grumble from Eric’s stomach, and by the time they walk out they have a production deal done.  It’s almost 11.  Eric has a lunch meeting in thirty minutes halfway across town.  “Fuck,” he says in the elevator, checking his watch, and Vince rubs his shoulder.  
  
“I suppose this means no time for a quickie in the backseat,” he says, and Eric sighs.  They haven’t managed sex once since Eric’s kids moved in — in part because Eric hasn’t yet felt comfortable engaging the baby-sitter’s services just so he can get laid.  His kids probably already feel abandoned enough.  But tonight they have a dinner meeting with David Mitchell, the rising star director that both Vince and Eric really want for his summer movie, so Eric has to go, already has the baby-sitter hired.  
  
“I can come by early tonight,” Eric offers, and Vince’s eyes light up.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
He nods, even though, honestly, he’s not positive he’s telling the truth.  But surely, surely, he can get everything done, get the kids home and fed, get the babysitter set up, and make it to Vince’s by 7.  Surely.  
  
“I’ll see you,” he says, and takes off across the parking lot.  
  
The lunch meeting goes on too long, so Eric’s late the minute it’s over, has to speed and call ahead to let Brent know he’ll be a few minutes late for their scheduled early drinks at the Palm.  He jogs from his car to the bar, orders a tonic with lime, and barely has time to blink before he’s at a table with Brent and Stacy Scogrew from ABC Studios and they’re talking numbers that Eric, luckily, reviewed that morning while the oatmeal was microwaving.  “Yeah, but you’re fucking us on the audience figures,” he says, and they get into a heated debate over whether Brent’s “Special Feature” cast interviews for On-Demand count into his contracted promotional duties or whether they’re outside media events.  Eric finally wins the concession they need, gets Brent to sign for another year on the series, and Stacy goes back to her office with a promise of a faxed contract by morning.  
  
“We should celebrate!” Brent says after she’s left.  
  
Eric signals for the bill.  It’s 3:15 on a Thursday, and it used to be he could actually start drinking at this time.  But right now all he can think of is the traffic he’s going to face getting back to the school.  “I wish I could,” he says, handing over his credit card and asking for a receipt.  It’s all business, after all.  “Look, the premiere next week, right?”  
  
“Yeah, about that,” Brent says, and Eric shakes his head.  
  
“It’s a big deal,” he says.  “You need to go, walk the carpet, make sure you get your photo taken a couple times.  Bring your new girl.  I already cleared it, Hazel’s not gonna be anywhere around you, OK?  If that’s what’s keeping you from —”  
  
“OK, OK,” he says.  He grins.  It’s not a perfect smile like Vince’s, but it’s convincing enough.  The kid has some raw talent and enough charm to get by; he’ll be a solid worker for a long time.  “Hey, you gonna finally introduce me to Vince Chase?”  
  
“You bet,” Eric promises.  “But only if you wear a suit.”  
  
He’s in his car by 3:30 and at the school only a little after 4.  The kids pile in and start talking immediately — Eric hears only about half of what’s said, but he nods and says, “Yeah, really?” a lot and both kids seem happy.  Brady’s got a spelling test coming up that Eric needs to remember to quiz him on, and Katie’s got overdue library books she’s worried about.  Eric relaxes a little, because he can’t be fucking them up too badly if they’re still this cute.  
  
They go straight home, even though Brady whines and wants to stop at Jack-in-the-Box.  Brady has a project request from his teacher — all of the kids are supposed to bring in a family photo the next day, so they sit at the computer and sort through the last couple of years in Eric’s digital camera files.  They finally find a picture Brady likes, of him and Katie on swings at the park, Eric standing between them with a hand on each chain.  Vince took the picture — Eric remembers this, because Brady’s giggling, his arms out wide, and Eric knows it’s because Vince was holding Brady’s favorite monkey, Mr. Bananas, just above the camera.  They print the picture on photo paper Eric finds in his den, and then Eric helps Katie with her multiplication tables for twenty minutes or so.  She follows him into his room with the homework, and he picks out a suit and shirt for dinner, goes into his bathroom to change so that he can call out answers as Katie yells questions.  
  
“What about if there’s  _three_  numbers to multiply?”  
  
“Do the first two,” he says, shrugging into his shirt.  He buttons it and tucks it in, then walks into the bedroom.  “Then take that answer and multiply it by the third number.”  
  
“So what’s three times three?”  
  
“Katie, you know that,” he says, fastening his cufflinks.  They’re silver and black, Tiffany, a gift from Vince at Christmas.  
  
“I don’t get why we can’t use calculators,” she says.  “The older kids get them.”  
  
“Because you have to learn this stuff.  They had to learn it, too.”    
  
“But why?”  
  
“Because you might need it someday.”  
  
“But why?”  
  
Eric sighs and sits on the bed.  “Because you might grow up and be a famous pilot or a bridge-builder or something, and then you’d need to be able to multiply and add and do lots of math things really well.”  
  
“But I’m not going to be a pilot,” she says.  Pilot, Eric remembers now, was last month’s job.  “I’m gonna be a famous actor, like Uncle Vince.”  
  
Eric doesn’t know whether to laugh or groan.  He manages, somehow, not to do either.  “Oh yeah?”  
  
“And I’m gonna make movies and you can come see them all.”  
  
“Thanks, sweetheart.”  He kisses the top of her head.  “Are you done, now?”  
  
“Almost.”  
  
He stands up and slides his jacket on.  “Finish up and then let’s go out and find you something for dinner, OK?”  
  
They find mini corn dogs in the freezer and both kids eat those and some green beans, and Eric’s just clearing their plates into the dishwasher when the doorbell rings.  Connie, the babysitter, is outside, and Eric checks his watch.  Yes, he thinks.  Just enough time to get to Vince’s place early.  
  
“Thank you so much for coming over,” Eric says, leading her into the living room.  
  
And that’s when Brady starts to cry.  
  
It takes twenty minutes for Eric to get him calmed down, twenty minutes where he tries unsuccessfully to think of a way he might be able to skip dinner.  Brady is throwing a full-on fit, crying, throwing his toys, just absolutely inconsolable, and normally Eric wouldn’t stand for this — he’d send him to his room until he was calm enough to be reasonable — but tonight it just cuts him, because Brady really  _does_  seem to think he’s going to be abandoned.  He cries “I don’t want to!” and “I hate you!” and “No no no!” over and over and Eric hears, You’re failing me.  He finally gets Brady calmed down by promising he’ll come in and say good-night when he gets back, and by promising Connie a little extra money so that Brady can use her phone to send him text messages anytime, and there are still tears on his little cheeks when he hugs Eric good-bye.  
  
At Vince’s place, his guilt is still making his stomach swirl, and he almost pauses outside the door to call home again.  But when he looks at the phone, he realizes he’s already running late; they have to leave now if they’re going to make it to the restaurant on time.  He groans and pushes inside, where Vince is pulling on a jacket in the foyer.  He raises an eyebrow at Eric.  “I waited as long as I could,” he says.  
  
“I know.  I’m sorry.”  He holds the door open and doesn’t miss the pissed-off look on Vince’s face as he passes.  And then they’re in the car and Vince is staring out the window, and Eric’s still worried about his kids and about the dinner they’re headed to, so Vince’s silence, while ominous, is also welcome.  He doesn’t really have time to worry about Vince being horny and hard-up right now.  
  
At the restaurant, they head for the bar, where they’re supposed to meet Ari for pre-dinner strategizing.  They see a guy Eric knows from Brent’s show and Eric introduces Vince, and Vince is cordial but not overly friendly; he’s earned the right to be a little aloof with people, by now, but Eric senses it’s more than that.  “OK, what?” he whispers when they’re both standing at the bar, Vince waiting on a drink, Eric already holding a tonic-and-lime.  “Why are you all —”  
  
“You really have to ask?” Vince says.  
  
Eric shakes his head.  If Vince is still pissed off about not getting laid, well, Eric really can’t deal with his forever-seventeen bullshit right now.  He sees Ari across the crowd.  “If you’re gonna be pissed at me all night, maybe I should skip.”  
  
“Maybe so,” Vince says.  
  
Eric looks over at him, and Vince is staring back, face hard, eyes angry, and Eric laughs.  “Fuck you,” he says.  
  
“E —” Vince says, but Eric darts through the crowd, headed right for Ari, who’s parked at a booth.  
  
“Nice place, huh?” Ari says when Eric slides in.  He’s drinking a gin-and-tonic, from the looks of it, and staring past Eric; when he looks over, he sees a girl in a silver dress with an extremely low-cut back.  Ari raises an eyebrow, and Eric rolls his eyes.  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot, you’re still in the five-year rebound from a four-year marriage.  
  
“And you’re, what, on the prowl?  Where’s Mrs. Ari tonight?”  
  
“She’s at home tied to the radiator, like every successful Thursday night.”  
  
“Yeah, great,” Eric says.  Vince is still at the bar — a couple of girls have attached themselves to him, and Eric sees them fumbling for cameras.  “Listen, you can handle this thing with Mitchell, right?” he says.    
  
“That is what I’m paid for.”  
  
“Great, because I’m gonna cut out.”  Ari stares at him, and Eric shrugs.  “I gotta get back to my kids.”  
  
Ari coughs dramatically on the end of a drink.  “How about I buy you a nanny, E?  Or maybe I can travel back in time, and introduce you to something I like to call ‘the condom.’”  
  
“Fuck you,” Eric says, turning, but Ari catches his arm.  
  
“No, fuck you, you little shit.  This is your job, this is the big deal, and if you think you can just walk out and everything’s gonna be fine, you clearly aren’t earning your money.”  
  
“Come on,” Eric says.  “Mitchell will love him.  Vince wants this as badly as we do.  You know he can sell it.”  
  
“Sure, I know that.”  
  
“Then why are you being a dick about it?”  
  
“Because, a, it’s in my job description, and b, I know he  _can_  sell it.  But I don’t know that he will.  He’s a motherfucking flighty artist, E, and recently, I’ve been getting some pretty fucked-up, apathetic vibes from him.  You know what I’m talking about.”  
  
Eric sighs.  He knows what Ari’s picking up on, and he’s pretty sure it has nothing to do with professional apathy.  Vince still wants to work, he’s just pissed off at Eric because he’s not getting the attention he wants.  “That’s not about this,” Eric says.  “I’ve been busy, recently, and I maybe —”  
  
“Oh, what am I, your marriage counselor now?”  Eric feels a flash of panic at the word marriage, but Ari keeps going, apparently — thank God — oblivious to how close to home he’s just struck.  “My point is this.  Whatever’s eating him, he’s unpredictable right now, and that doesn’t always work in our favor.  You can’t cut out early tonight, not when Vince needs you in an actual business capacity.  I’m giving you serious advice here, so write it down if you have to: You have a job.  Your job puts food on the table for the mini-Murphys.  They do not run you.  You run them.  And you run a business, or so I thought.”  
  
Eric has warring impulses, right then: he wants to hit Ari for being a dick, and he wants to hit Ari for being right.  Before he can decide on either, Ari’s eyes flicker past him again and he smiles big and holds out his hand.  “My man!” he says, and Vince is there, suddenly, gripping Ari’s hand, and they share a one-armed shoulder-bumping embrace before Vince sits next to Eric.  “How’s it going, you ready to talk tonight?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess,” Vince says, and Ari shoots Eric a look like, See what I mean?  Vince’s elbow nudges his arm.  “I thought you were leaving.”  
  
“Ari says he’s buying, so I guess I’m gonna stick around.”  
  
Vince shakes his head and laughs a little, staring down at his drink, and Eric doesn’t look over.  He’s not getting into this, especially not in front of Ari.  
  
Ari says, “So what’s been going on recently, anyway, man?  Where’ve you been, I feel like it’s been years since I saw you last.”  
  
Vince shrugs.  “I’ve been at home.  Alone.  Every night, recently.”  
  
“That is just sad,” Ari says.  “That is — no wonder you’re looking so down.”  
  
“I know,” Vince says.  “It is sad.”  
  
Eric wants to tell him to shut the fuck up; instead, he sips his drink and wishes it had actual alcohol in it.  
  
“So, I tell you what let’s do,” Ari says.  “We nail down this thing with Mitchell, then we cut out, head over to Sunny’s to celebrate.  What do you think?  We’ll get some drinks, find some girls —”  
  
“You’re married, Ari,” Eric says, and Ari rolls his eyes.  
  
“I forgot, you’re the expert, now,” Ari says.  “So we’ll find Vince a girl and I’ll find someone to have a nice conversation with, all right, E?  Maybe you should come along, we’ll get you laid, too.  It can’t take that many drinks to make you look hot under bad lighting.”  
  
“I’ve got the babysitter,” Eric says, and Ari grins.  
  
“Nice,” he says.  “That’s what I’m talking about.”  
  
“I meant - get your mind out of the fucking gutter.  I meant I’ve got to get home, for the babysitter.”  
  
Ari groans.  “Jesus fucking Christ, Eric.  You’re the biggest downer I’ve had since that bad mescaline trip in ‘91.  All right, no pussy for you, that doesn’t mean Vince and I can’t have a good night.  What do you say, man?  Give an old man something to look forward to.”  
  
Eric does look at Vince, now: he glares at him, but Vince is looking only at Ari.  “Yeah, all right, sounds fun,” he says.  
  
Eric makes a fist under the table, but he doesn’t know what to do with it — he wants to hit everyone there, Vince, Ari, even himself.  Jesus Christ, he thinks, and takes a long swallow of his drink.  
  
“So, now that we’ve got the fun taken care of, let’s get down to business,” Ari says, and he launches into his plan for dinner, which mostly boils down to him talking and the two of them speaking only when spoken to.  For once, Eric’s perfectly willing to go along with that plan, because nothing he feels like saying at the moment is going to be of any use toward getting Vince a new job.  In fact, if he lets loose, Vince might quickly become unemployable.  
  
A waitress stops at their table.  “Can I get you anything else?” she asks.  
  
Eric holds up his glass.  “Gin and tonic,” he says, while the others order water, so as not to be ahead of Mitchell too far when he arrives.  
  
When they get up from the table, Eric puts Ari between himself and Vince, and even though they end up sitting together in their booth at dinner, Eric manages not to make eye contact with Vince a single time.  It’s one of the worst meals he’s ever been through, and not because of Mitchell.  It’s a terrible meal because Eric has to fake every second of it, has to push himself to laugh, to smile, to behave humanely.  He hears himself talking intelligently about the vision they have for the script, he hears himself saying knowledgeable things about the budget bottom-line and about distribution and festival press, he even hears himself repeat a nice anecdote about his kids after Mitchell mentions his own twin sons, but none of it is real.  None of it is what he’s really thinking about or feeling, because that can all be summed up in a word: betrayed.  
  
After they’ve seen Mitchell off at the curb, Eric calls for his car and keeps his back turned on Vince.  Ari’s hands land on his shoulders, and he feels himself being shaken.  
  
“I take it back, all of the death threats and the jokes about your height and that time I threatened to fuck your mother,” Ari says.  “You were fucking brilliant.  The kid thing?  I think that put us over the top, you little fucking Hollywood producer bitch.  Jesus, you’ll probably have more credits in the movie than Vince.”  
  
“Just doing my job,” Eric says.  
  
“Well, you fucking rocked it.  Seriously.  Call your babysitter and double her take — hell,  _I’ll_  double her take, and let’s go celebrate this.”  
  
“No can do,” Eric says.  He takes the keys from the valet and thanks him.  “Kids.”  
  
Ari shakes his head but raises an imaginary toast.  “To the kids,” he says.  “I’d say hug it out, but I know you’re still getting over the missus.”  
  
“And on that note,” Eric says, and he slides into the driver’s seat.  
  
“E,” Vince says, and he braces himself on the passenger’s side door.  Eric looks over, looks at Ari behind him.  “You’re really not going to come with us?”  
  
Eric faces front.  “We have lunch tomorrow with Shauna,” he says.  “I’ll see you then.”  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Vince says.  “So that’s it, you’re just gonna drive off.”  
  
“Yeah, have fun,” Eric says, and pulls away.  
  
Connie has the kids in bed, and she takes the tip from Eric gracefully, tells him they were both just fine after he left.  “Kids are like that, sometimes,” she says, shrugging.  “Once you’re gone, they just settle in and make the best of it.  They’re very resilient.”  
  
After she leaves, he gets a bottle of water from the fridge and lays on the couch to drink it.  He’s bone-tired from too little sleep and too much stress, he has a million things he should be doing, and all he can think of is Vince standing on the curb, arms crossed, looking angry and so fucking hot that he’s probably already getting laid at the club.  Eric sets his water down and covers his face.  Motherfucker, he thinks.  He’s mad at himself and Vince in almost equal measure: Vince for not understanding what he’s going through and for making everything so difficult and for whatever is going on at that club, and at himself for not understanding that this was where things were headed all along.  Vince is his best friend and the guy he’s in love with, and he’s also, at his worst, a big fucking child who can’t stand to wait even a second for the things he wants.  Eric should have known — no, Eric did know, and chose to ignore, what a colossal fucking mistake this would be, and now he’s going to pay.  And he has his kids to worry about.  He can’t fall apart or anything, not this time.  
  
The buzz of the intercom rouses him from half-sleep, and he’s disoriented until he realizes where he is: on his couch, still fully dressed.  It’s two a.m.  He staggers up and hits the button, grumbles, “Yeah?” as quietly as he can.  
  
“Let me up,” Vince says.  
  
Eric’s finger hovers over the admit button, and then he draws back.  He doesn’t want Vince up here no matter what he’s going to say.  “Let’s do this in the morning,” he says.  
  
“No, E.  Now.”  
  
Eric sighs.  “The kids are asleep.”  
  
“Then fucking come down here,” Vince says.  He sounds tired more than anything.  “I’m not leaving.”  
  
So Eric grabs a jacket, locks the door, and goes down to the lobby.  Vince is waiting in the outer hall, sitting on a little cement bench, wearing the same clothes he had at dinner.  When Eric walks into the entryway, he can already smell the alcohol on him.  “Christ,” he says, and Vince looks up.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Thank God you didn’t drive yourself here.”  
  
Vince shakes his head.  “You won’t even let me up, huh?”  
  
“My kids are asleep,” Eric says.  He leans against the closed door.  “Besides, I don’t think there’s a lot we have to say.”  
  
“Are you — are you fucking  _kidding_  me?” Vince is glaring at him.  
  
“What have you been doing, then?” Eric says.  
  
“I was at the fucking club, with Ari,” Vince says.  “I was there, and I was surrounded by girls — totally fucking hot girls who really fucking wanted me, who would’ve let me do just about anything, OK?  Those kind of girls.”  
  
Eric shifts and scratches his neck.  This was a mistake.  He doesn’t want to hear any of this.  “That’s great,” he says.  “Glad to know Ari’s still got the pimp thing down.”  
  
“Yeah,” Vince says, nodding, “I said I could’ve fucked them.  But I didn’t.  You know why?  Because I kept thinking of you.  Because I’m with you, motherfucker, even if it doesn’t fucking feel like it most of the time.”  
  
Eric swallows.  He opens his mouth but can’t quite think of what to say.  “Yeah?” he manages.  
  
“Yeah.”  Eric feels something get looser in his chest.  He takes a few steps and sits next to Vince on the bench.  “We have got to fucking work this out, though, E, because I’m going insane.  I get that they’re your kids and you’re busy and all of that, but — but you’re making things impossible.”  
  
“I’m not,” Eric says, and Vince looks over at him.  “Not on purpose.”  
  
“You kind of are,” Vince says.  “Look at you.  You won’t even let me upstairs, because they might get the wrong idea.”  
  
“I’m not letting you up there because you’re drunk,” Eric says.  “And because I thought we were gonna yell.”    
  
Vince snorts.  “But even if I was stone-cold sober and promised to whisper, you wouldn’t let me into your place in the middle of the night.”  Eric doesn’t disagree.  Vince drops his head into his hands, so when he speaks, Eric can’t make out the words.    
  
“What?”  
  
“This fucking sucks,” Vince says more clearly, and loudly.  “The every-other week thing was bad enough, E, but never?”  
  
“Not never,” he says, though it is starting to feel that way.  “Besides, it’s not like we don’t see each other.”  
  
“Yeah, great,” Vince says.  “You’re right, hanging out at your place with the kids, worrying the whole time about whether I’m sitting too close or flirting with you, that makes it a lot easier to go home alone.  Good point, E.”  
  
He stands up fast, and Eric looks up at his turned back.  “You saying you don’t want to do this anymore?” Eric asks quietly.  
  
“No,” Vince says.  His voice has a sad, soft desperation in it that’s new; Eric can’t tell if it’s put on or not.  “I’ll take what I can get, I guess.  But I’m saying this really sucks.”  He turns and faces Eric.  “It can’t go on forever.”  
  
Eric doesn’t want things to go on like this forever, just until his kids are grown up enough to handle things.  Like when they have kids of their own.  “We’ve managed for this long,” he says.  
  
“Yeah, and that’s sucked, too,” Vince says.  “Five years, E.  They’ve gotta know sometime.”  
  
“Not yet,” Eric says.  “Look, they’re dealing with a lot right now.  Tina’s getting remarried, she’s having a new baby, she moved, they have to stay with me -”  
  
“I know,” Vince says.  “But — it’s always something.”  
  
“Not always,” Eric says.  He wants to reach out and touch Vince, but there are cameras in the lobby, so the best he can do is meet his eyes.  “OK?  We’re gonna figure this out.”  
  
“You didn’t show tonight,” Vince says.  “You told me — and then you weren’t there, and I just, I know, I get it, E, this is hard for you, for them, but it feels like — lately it’s like you aren’t even trying.  Like you don’t want things to work out.”  Vince blinks.  He looks completely earnest and sad and maybe even scared.   “I miss you,” he says, and Eric swallows hard.  "I miss -- you know what, for four years, we did this every-other-week thing, and I thought, OK.  This is just something we're going through and it will get better.  And I got to live with you at least half the time, like you're my honest-to-god partner, and that was -- that was hard enough, but at least -- at least I thought it would get better.  But now, E -- I don't even get to see you most days.  I don't even -- you're supposed to be, like, you're the most important person in my life, and I spend most of my time without you.  And it sucks.  It just -- "  He shakes his head.  "I miss you.  That's my point."  
  
Eric has to clear his throat before he can talk.  “I know it's hard," he starts, and then he tries again.  "I miss you, too.  Christ.  I -- I fucking -- I am just, I know it's hard.  I don't have stuff figured out yet.  I don’t know what else you want from me,” he says, his voice a little thick.  “They’re — they’re just little kids, Vince.  They’re still freaked out about Tina moving.  Brady sobbed for like twenty minutes straight tonight when I left, that’s why I was late.  He thinks I’m going to abandon him.  And Katie’s just getting adjusted again, she’s just starting to be friendly at school.  I’ve got to focus on them, right now.  I’ve got to be there for them.  And I know it makes it harder for us, but — this is what I’ve got to do.  It’s not ideal, it’s not what I want, but — Vin, I’m trying,” he says.  “Please don’t think I’m not trying, OK?”  
  
“OK,” Vince says after a moment.  He sits next to him, rests his arm on Eric’s shoulder and squeezes, and Eric lets him, even leans against him a little.  He knows it's hard -- of course he fucking knows.  He misses Vince, too -- when he's got enough time to realize that he misses him.  When he's got enough time to even catch his breath.  “OK,” Vince says again, and draws back.  “Call me a cab, all right?  We can — we’ll pick this up tomorrow, you’re right.”  
  
“I’m glad you came by,” Eric says honestly.  
  
Vince nods.  Later, watching him get into the cab, Eric has to look away fast.  It still takes him a minute to convince himself to go back upstairs, instead of chasing after Vince, as he leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

Eric makes more of an effort to spend “quality” time with Vince during the day, starting the next day, when he drops in before lunch and they spend an hour having what Eric thinks counts as make-up sex.  Vince apologizes for being angry, and Eric apologizes for being difficult, and they blow off lunch (well, Eric does call) to spend more time in bed.  After that, he starts pushing his meetings with other clients around as best he can to allow them more time together.  In fact, once Brent’s contract is finished and Danielle has her role set in the Greengrass film, Eric’s schedule clears up enough that things really aren’t so bad.  For a couple of weeks, he sees Vince regularly and still has plenty of time with the kids.  It’s still a balancing act, but he’s getting better at it.  Things are starting to feel settled.  
  
The kids are settling in, too.  They quickly seem to grasp the positive aspects of staying in one place all the time, and really dig in to redecorating their rooms.  Brady seems to get past his abandonment fears — the next time Eric has Connie stay over, he barely looks up from his comic book as Eric leaves.  Katelyn’s doing fine in school, as always, but when Eric goes in for mid-term conferences in February, her teacher is still concerned by her lack of social activities.  She says the word “isolated” and then Eric starts to worry.  So he spends some time trying to convince her of the beauty of basketball, or scouting, or even the math club, and she doesn’t take the bait.  
  
“Soccer?” Eric asks, one night over spaghetti.  “Nice chance to meet boys.”  
  
“Ick, Dad,” Katie says.  “It’s a lot of running, besides.”  
  
“Katie, this is easy,” Vince says.  “You want to do something, you join the swim team.”  She looks at him for a minute with narrowed eyes.  “Come on, all those years at my house, you’re a born swimmer.  And you like it, which is more than I can say for volleyball.”  
  
She stares at him for a second more, then nods.  “I guess I can ask,” she says, which Eric decodes to mean that she’s actually pretty excited.  
  
After dinner, Katie goes to her room to call her best friend or her other best friend or, really, anyone who will pick up the phone, and Brady goes to his room for his one hour of allowed computer game time.  Eric and Vince clear the plates from the table, and then Vince sits on the counter while Eric shifts leftovers into Tupperware.  “You’re a fucking genius,” Eric says, snapping the lid onto the spaghetti bowl.  “Swim team, why didn’t I think of that?”  
  
Vince shrugs.  “Because I’m the brains of this operation, clearly.”  
  
“Clearly.”  Eric looks up at him.  Vince has on a lazy, yeah-I’m-that-good smile, and usually it would drive Eric nuts, but not tonight.  Tonight, he’s been kind and wonderful to Eric’s daughter, and he spent ten minutes trading knock-knock jokes with Brady before dinner, and he’s wearing the same fucking T-shirt that  _People Magazine_  photographed him in for their Sexiest Man Alive cover.  He’s trying, too.  Eric rests his hand on Vince’s thigh, and Vince’s eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“Rule change?” Vince asks.  
  
“Rule suspension,” Eric says.  “For good behavior.  Jesus, I’d like to make out with you, right now.”  
  
“What would you settle for?” Vince’s hand rests carefully on his shoulder, and he slides down off the counter easily, still graceful.  His hands settle at Eric’s waist, and Eric sees his eyes are open, that they’re trained on the door, so he kisses him.  Just once, with his hand flat on Vince’s belly, under the shirt, and then he pulls back a little.  “And the world didn’t end,” Vince says, and Eric smiles.  
  
“Yeah,” he says.  He glances back at the door, then steps to the side, out of Vince’s arms, and his hand slides slowly from under his T-shirt.  Vince loiters in the kitchen while Eric cleans up, though they don’t touch anymore.  But Vince is smiling and humming a little, like he’s won something, and Eric figures maybe that’s right, maybe he has.  Maybe he deserves it.  
  


* * *

  
  
After that, Eric alters his rules a little.  He tells himself that really, this is for the kids as much as for himself.  The less he and Vince are working to hide things, the less they’re actually lying to the kids.  So Vince drops by more often, and sometimes, when the kids are both sleeping or studying or otherwise engaged, he lets things just happen.  When Vince comes over for a movie and dinner, sometimes they have dessert in the kitchen — quick, still-furtive make-out sessions — while the kids are doing homework.  Sometimes, if both kids are down for the night, Eric lets Vince move closer on the couch, so he can watch TV with his head in Eric’s lap or his arm around Eric’s shoulders.  One weekend, they all stay at Vince’s place so the kids can hang out by the pool, and after everyone’s tucked in Eric and Vince go back to Vince’s bedroom.  Eric isn’t comfortable staying there — what if someone needs him in the middle of the night? — but he is comfortable enough to make sure they both get off before he leaves.  
  
And, like Vince said, the world doesn’t end.  Vince is pretty gracious about the whole thing, considering.  Sure, a few times, he gives Eric a smug I-told-you-so look when he backs away from a kiss in the kitchen, but mostly he seems just quiet and happy for the time they get.  
  
Which, still, isn’t enough.  Sweeps are approaching and Eric’s other clients are demanding more and more of his time — he’d forgotten, really, how fucking hard it was to get things started for actors — and what’s left goes to keeping things running with the kids.  Just the amount of laundry that has to be sent out is staggering, and on top of that there are meals to prepare or arrange, there are rides to coordinate, other parents to talk to, homework to be looked over.  There’s always more shopping to do: a new backpack, new shoes, a special kind of glue, a new educational computer game to buy.  There’s even a science project to help with and then a science fair to attend.  Eric does it all — does everything he humanly can, because his kids are counting on him.  And every other night, he hands them the telephone in the living room and tries to act like he’s not eavesdropping when they talk to their mother on the phone.  
  
He talks to Tina, too, though not so often as the kids.  She has questions about grades, about friends, about visits and potential conflicts.  The first time she asks about some girl who’s been picking on Katie at school, Eric’s more shocked and hurt that Katie never mentioned this to him than he is about the actual behavior.   
  
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” he asks Vince that night, when Vince is laying across Eric’s couch and Eric is sitting in the armchair right next to it.  He has his feet kicked up on the coffee table, because the kids are in bed.  “I’m her dad, I mean, she’s getting picked on, that’s a big deal.”  
  
Vince turns on his side.  “E, she’s a girl.”  
  
“I noticed.”  
  
“I just meant, maybe there are things that girls only tell their moms.  Like there are things guys only tell their friends.”  
  
Eric frowns.  Tina didn’t say it was a girl thing.  But maybe it was.  He can’t remember at all what nine-year-old girls were like when he was that age, and he has no real idea of what they might find fault in with each other.  “Do you think I should take her shopping or something?” he asks.  
  
Vince shakes his head and smiles.  He puts his hand on Eric’s ankle.  “E, you’re doing everything you should be doing.  Kids just do this kind of stuff, OK?  She’s not having it any harder than anyone else.”  
  
Eric says, “Yeah?” and Vince nods.  
  
“Seriously,” he says.  “You’re a great dad.”  
  
Eric smiles, even though he doesn’t quite believe it.  He’s a busy dad, he’s a working dad.  He’s trying to be a great dad.  But he’s got so much shit going on that, well, he’s barely keeping his head above water, sometimes.    
  
“Hey, so, this weekend?” Vince asks.  
  
“Yeah, Friday,” Eric says, nodding.  Brady has a Boy Scouts overnight, and Katie’s going to a slumber party.  “It’s all set.  Your place?”  
  
Vince grins.  “Absolutely.  I was thinking we could maybe christen the new counters.”  
  
Eric raises an eyebrow.  “Where’d you get new counters?”  
  
“In the guest bathroom.  Johnny saw them in some magazine — I don’t know, they’re, like, made from bamboo and recycled plastic bags or something, and — anyway.  I was thinking we could break them in.”  
  
Eric smirks.  “You have a thing for counters recently.”  
  
“I thought about the kitchen, too,” Vince says, “don’t you worry.  I’ll have a plan by Friday.”  
  
Eric nods.  He’s not worried.  This is the kind of stuff that Vince is good at planning and arranging for himself.  In fact, for the rest of the week, Eric gets random text messages out of nowhere with various household locations listed:  _living room floor.  Top of the dryer.  In the jacuzzi.  New recliner.  Old recliner.  Theater couches.  Staircase (x2)_. Each one makes him laugh and tingle a little.  
  
But by the time Friday rolls around, he’s almost too tired to even care.  He’s been having a prolonged fight with Brent and ABC over Brent’s contractual obligations for the summer, when Brent wants to film his friend’s indie pic in New Mexico, and the distribution deal for Danielle’s last movie is going nowhere fast.  Vince is, for once, his only non-trouble-causing client, and that’s just because Ari is pulling his own weight in their Paramount deal.  Of course, just because he’s not causing Eric any professional headaches doesn’t mean there isn’t any tension; the fight about telling the kids continues.  
  
Friday, he picks Vince up on the way to Katie’s slumber party, and after they’ve dropped her off, Vince says, “You know, you don’t even have any underwear at my place anymore.  Did you bring an overnight bag?”   
  
“Am I gonna need a lot of underwear?”  Eric glances over, and Vince rolls his eyes.  He’s still pissed, Eric can tell, that Eric moved all of his clothes out a few weeks ago.  But what was he supposed to do?  He needed those clothes  — half of his closet had migrated to Vince’s house over the last four years.  “Come on, I’ve had eighty-seven meetings and a contrary pre-teen all week, it’s too much to ask that my boyfriend’s happy to see me?”  
  
“I’m happy,” Vince says.  “I’m fucking overjoyed.”  
  
“Please,” Eric says.  He’s so fucking exhausted.    
  
Vince nods and lets it drop, and when he squeezes Eric’s shoulder, Eric takes that as an apology.  
  
They go out for dinner with the other guys, who Eric hardly sees anymore, and then they go back to Vince’s place.  Just walking in, Eric feels tired.  He shouldn’t have had the beer he did at dinner, because the alcohol is just piling on to his exhaustion.  He lets Vince propel him back to the bedroom and falls onto the bed, and Vince climbs over him and kisses him while he eases off Eric’s shirt and pants.  
  
He makes a half-hearted reach for Vince’s fly, and is surprised when Vince pulls away.  “It’s OK,” Vince says.  “In the morning.”  
  
Eric nods, and kisses him again, and eventually falls asleep with his head on Vince’s pillow.    
  


* * *

  
  
That’s how he wakes up, too, with Vince stretched out asleep beside him.  Eric props himself up and looks down at Vince, who’s sleeping perfectly peacefully, his face slack, his bare chest rising evenly.  They didn’t have the wild, romantic night Vince had planned, but as far as Eric’s concerned, this is about the best possible outcome.  He misses this — and he knows it makes him a sap, but he does, he misses waking up with Vince, misses padding around his house in pajamas, sometimes for a full day at a time.  He misses hanging out with him and the guys.  He can admit it, he misses life before this big change, before he had an ex-wife to worry about.  Sure.  And even knowing all of that, he doesn’t miss not having kids, because just thinking of them — well, that makes him feel really sappy, because Jesus, he loves those kids to death.  
  
He rests his hand on Vince’s chest and looks across him to the clock.  It’s early, still, only seven.  There’s not enough time — there never is — but he doesn’t have to leave yet.  “Hmm?” Vince says, waking up slowly as Eric kisses his neck.  
  
“It’s morning,” Eric whispers, his mouth against Vince’s ear.  Vince sighs and wakes up a little, or at least enough to turn on his side when Eric urges him to, and he shifts his leg forward and touches Eric encouragingly.  Eric fucks him long and slow, like they haven’t done in a while, and afterwards he holds Vince and they talk in sleepy whispers and make out a little.  Vince falls back asleep, and Eric shifts him, gently, onto his pillow, then gets up and showers, shaves, and dresses in the clothes he actually did bring along.  He sits on the bed once he’s all ready and rubs his hand up and down Vince’s bare back, until Vince stirs and turns his face toward him.  
  
“I gotta go,” Eric says, kissing his shoulder.  
  
“Mm-hm,” Vince mumbles.  
  
“I gotta pick up Brady,” Eric says, and Vince doesn’t even open his eyes.  Eric leans over and presses a kiss into the middle of his back, then another on his shoulder.  “Get up, OK?” he murmurs.  He kisses Vince’s neck.  “You can meet us for lunch.”  
  
“OK,” Vince says, but his eyes flutter closed again.  Eric smiles at him for a second, then thinks, yep, total sap, and makes sure Vince’s phone is on and sitting on the bedside stand before he leaves.   
  
He picks up Brady and then Katie, and they go to lunch just the three of them in the food court at the mall, then do a little shopping for both kids.  It’s just a typical Saturday afternoon, and Eric’s just a guy with his kids.    
  
“What’d you do last night, Daddy?” Katie asks after she’s told him about the scary movie at the party for the fourth time.  
  
“I hung out with Uncle Vince a little,” he says, because he’s not going to lie, even if he’s not going to tell the truth.  Katie seems satisfied with that — she even asks if they can hang out with Uncle Vince soon, and Eric says yes.  They keep shopping.  It doesn’t escape Eric’s notice that if he tells the kids about his relationship with Vince, it won’t be long before everyone knows about it.  Katie and Brady are too young to be asked to keep secrets, and Vince is pretty famous, even among Katie’s little classmates.  Already some of the mothers associate Eric with Vince just professionally, and he’s not terribly comfortable with that.  How much worse would it be if they all knew they were together?  If those mothers — and the mothers that are standing around him now, in the kids’ section at Macy’s — knew that Eric was Vincent Chase’s lover?  He tries to imagine a way in which that wouldn’t backfire onto his kids, and he can’t.  It makes him feel a little queasy just thinking about it.  
  
He buys Katie a new pair of jeans, a dress, and a couple of shirts, and gets Brady two pairs of pants and a sweater, even though it’s not really ever sweater weather in L.A.  He just likes the idea that he’ll be prepared if he needs it.  Both kids need more socks — Eric has no idea where they disappear to — and both kids want more shoes, so they stop at Kids Foot Locker before finally leaving the mall.  As they pull out, Eric calls Vince, who sounds wide awake, and basically invites himself and the kids over for dinner.  When they get there, Vince is dressed in jeans and soft T-shirt, and he says there’s a pizza on the way.  Eric wants to kiss him; he remembers his fear from the mall; he just grins and says thank you, instead, and lets the kids hug him.  
  
Over dinner, Katie talks almost non-stop, and eventually she invites Vince to her first swim meet, which is in a month.  Vince will be back on set by then, and he meets Eric’s eyes across the table as if asking what he should do.  Before Eric can say anything, though, Vince just says, “Honey, I promise I’ll try.  And if I can’t make it to that exact one, I’m definitely going to make it to one before the end of the season, all right?”  
  
“OK,” she says.  “We’re really good.  I practice three times a week.”  
  
“That’s a lot,” Vince says, and Eric smiles down at his plate.  “If you ever need more practice, you know you can use my pool anytime.”  
  
“Yeah.  You really mean it?”  
  
Eric looks up, and Vince says, “But not by yourself, right?” and Katie agrees.  
  
After dinner, the kids get settled in with a movie, and Eric goes to the kitchen to help Vince clean up.  He starts loading dishes into the dishwasher while Vince picks cheese off the bottom of the pizza box.  “What do you think about this new script Ari’s pushing?”  
  
“I think it could be good for you,” Eric says.  Ari has in mind a serious period drama, sort of Gladiator-meets-the-Grapes-of-Wrath, about a man who watches his family die and then marches to Washington to kill the president in protest.  “It’s a pretty grown up role.”  
  
“Hey,” Vince protests, though Eric can hear that he’s kidding.  This movie isn’t a coming-of-age anything, it’s not a bachelor movie, it’s past mid-life-crisis territory.  It would be acting his age, which is weirdly what, to Eric, seems appealing.  “You saying I’m not a grown up?”  
  
“Is that your plate, with the crusts not eaten?” Eric asks, and Vince laughs.  He turns to the sink to rinse off the pizza cutter,  and Vince steps up behind him and puts his arms around Eric’s waist.    
  
“Maybe I can take maturity lessons from you, huh?”  
  
Eric laughs and sets the cutter in the drainer.  “Maybe I can take stamina lessons from you,” he says, but he tilts his head  so Vince can kiss his neck.  He can hear the movie still running in the living room, and he’s pretty sure both kids are asleep in front of the TV.  
  
“You think you can get a babysitter next week?” Vince asks, pulling back.  Eric turns to face him.  “Sherman’s having a party.”  
  
“Ugh,” Eric says.  “How about, you go and you come by later and tell me all about it?”  
  
Vince sighs.  “It might be pretty late,” he says.  
  
“So I’ll stay up,” Eric says.  “And you can crash at my place, if you want.”  It’s not that weird, after all; the kids understand the meaning of friendly sleep-overs.  And they really like Vince.  
  
Vince smiles.  “Yeah?”  
  
“If the kids are in bed when you come by,” he says.  “And hey, try not to get too wasted, all right?”  
  
“Why, am I gonna get lucky?”  
  
“You’re lucky every day,” Eric says.  
  
Vince grins and kisses Eric, quickly, on the mouth, then slides away.  “All right,” he says.  “I’ll try.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Brady gets sick the next day.  Eric notices sniffles in the morning, and by the evening, he’s progressed to a red, runny nose, flushed cheeks, and listlessness.  When Brady doesn’t finish his dinosaur-shaped macaroni and cheese at dinner, Eric finds the digital thermometer in the bathroom, sits next to Brady on the couch, and checks his temperature.  101.  “Hey, pal, you feel bad?” he asks, and Brady nods and climbs up into his lap.  Eric feels the back of his neck, like his mother used to do, and Brady’s skin is too warm to the touch.  
  
Katie, sitting at the dining table, looks up from her homework and says, “He’s probably got pneumonia.”  She pronounces the P, but Eric doesn’t correct her.  He’s already worried about the wheeze he hears in Brady’s breathing.  
  
He says, “Let’s get you to bed, OK?”  
  
There’s still a little Dimetapp left from Katie’s last sort throat/cold, and so Eric gives Brady a spoonful of that and tucks him in.  He’s awoken that night by the sound of Brady coughing, just once, though when he checks Brady hasn’t woken; the second time he wakes up, it’s because Brady is in his room, asking to stay with him.  Eric takes his temperature again, finds it’s about the same.  He gives Brady a dose of children’s Tylenol, and then they both get a little bit of sleep.  
  
In the morning, Eric finds Pop Tarts that Vince must have smuggled in and slides two into the toaster for Katie’s breakfast.  She sits at the kitchen island to eat, swinging her legs against the stool so that her heels strike a few times every second.  Eric rubs his forehead and tries to ignore the noise.  “Come on, honey, hurry up,” he says as she lingers over her food.  
  
“It’s only 7:13,” she says.  “I have twelve minutes.”  
  
“Chrissy’s mom is picking you up today,” Eric explains.  He called Julia Bachman the night before to see if she could squeeze Katie into her carpool, and Julia — who hits on him every time she sees him — agreed happily.  
  
“I hate Chrissy’s mom.  Why can’t you take me?”  
  
Eric sighs, barely catches himself from saying he does, too.  “I have to stay with Brady.  He’s sick.”  
  
“I could be sick.”  
  
He rolls his eyes.  Sometimes, he sees flashes of himself in Katie — an idea of what he must have been like at nine years old — and it’s endearing and scary all at once.  “Yeah, but you’re not.  Not today.  So go grab your bag, all right?”  
  
She climbs down, leaving a Pop Tart and a half sitting on her plate.  Eric picks up the discarded half and eats it nervously, already thinking about the meetings he’ll need to postpone.  He wonders if he should take Brady to the doctor, but it’s probably just another cold.  Kids get them all the time.  
  
Katie walks back in wearing her small purple backpack and her small purple shoes, and Eric quickly finishes the rest of the Pop Tart and dusts his hands on his pants.  He locks the condo up and takes Katie down to the curb to meet Julia.  While they wait, Katie looks up at him, her hand in his.  “What about my lunch?” she says.  
  
“Shit,” he says, and Katie giggles.  “I’m sorry.  That was a bad choice of words,” he says, echoing the language he and Tina agreed upon when the kids were very little.  He uses his free hand to get a ten dollar bill from his wallet and hands it over to Katie.  “You’ll have to buy something today, OK?  And bring me back the change.”  
  
“Can I get an ice cream?”  
  
He should say no.  “All right,” he says.  “But promise you’ll buy a sandwich or something like that first, OK?  And drink all of your milk.”  
  
“Ice cream is in the milk group,” Katie says, and Eric smiles at her serious, all-knowing tone.  
  
Chrissy and Julia pull up a minute later and Julia rolls the passenger’s side window down.  “Is everything OK, Eric?” she coos.  
  
“Brady’s just got a cold,” he says, staying back a few feet.  “I should get back in.  Thank you for doing this.”  
  
“Anything you need, you just call,” she says, and Eric turns his attention immediately to Katie, to see if she’s picking up on the tone.  She seems already absorbed in talking to her friend, though, and he’s glad.  
  
He spends the rest of the day puttering around the house, trying to do business through e-mail and hushed phone conversations, while Brady sleeps in front of the television.  When he wakes up, Eric heats up a can of chicken with stars, a classic of his own childhood, and keeps a check on his temperature.  Brady seems to be OK for most of the morning and afternoon, just sort of tired and sniffly, but as the day goes on he seems to feel worse, not better.  That night, after Julia drops Katie off again — and Eric fends off her offer of bringing over dinner the next day — Brady’s fever climbs to 102, and his sniffles seem to be moving into a cough.  Eric manages to get him to eat another bowl of soup for dinner, and then Brady asks — actually asks — if he can go to bed early.  That worries him more than anything.  
  
Katie looks up from her soup and says, “So I guess Chrissy’s mom is coming tomorrow again, too, huh?”  
  
“Probably so,” Eric says.  “Eat that, don’t play with it.”  
  
“I don’t like the star kind,” she says.  “ _I’m_  not sick.  It only tastes good when you’re sick.”  
  
He’s too tired and too worried to fight with her, so he finds a frozen mini pizza and microwaves that for her dinner.  After she’s eaten a predictable half of that, she goes to her room to call Chrissy, and Eric calls Vince.  
  
“I gotta cancel on the meeting tomorrow,” he says, rubbing his forehead.  He grabs Katie’s soup bowl and starts to eat the rest of it himself.  “Brady’s gonna be home again.”  
  
“Yeah, is he pretty sick?” Vince asks.  
  
“I don’t know,” Eric admits.  He can’t really tell if Brady’s just got a cough or if he should be more worried.  “I might take him to the doctor or something.”  
  
“Call Dr. Rogers,” Vince suggests, and Eric laughs.  
  
“Vin, he’s your doctor, he’s not a pediatrician.  Besides, I think he only makes house calls for superstars, not their managers’ kids.”  
  
“He likes you, though,” Vince says.  
  
Katie walks out, holding the cordless phone.  “Chrissy’s mom can take me to school, but Chrissy has to be at dance class right after and I have swimming.”  
  
Eric asks Vince, “Hey, what are you up to tomorrow afternoon?  Think you could pick up Katie for me?”  
  
“Is that Uncle Vince?” Katie asks, and Eric nods.  
  
“Absolutely,” Vince says.  “You need anything else?”  
  
Sanity, Eric thinks, but he says, “We’re OK.  Come over tomorrow maybe, though?” and Vince agrees.  
  
The next morning goes about the same, except that by afternoon, Brady has a full-fledged, wicked-sounding cough, and Eric’s twice as worried as he was before.  He gets Brady settled on the living room couch, then calls the kids’ regular doctor and finds out he’s on vacation.  When he talks to the nurse of another doctor in the office, she tells him it’s probably just a virus, that they’ve been seeing a lot of kids with colds, and that there isn’t really anything they can do.  “Just lots of rest and fluids,” she says, and Eric thanks her and hangs up.  He pours Brady another glass of juice and snugs the blanket around him.  
  
“How you feeling, kiddo?”  He strokes Brady’s hair, and Brady shivers.  “You cold?”  
  
“And hot,” he says.  His face is a little pinker than usual, and Eric takes his temperature again.  It’s up to 103.  He gives him another dose of Tylenol and sits with him on the couch, Brady’s head on a pillow in his lap.  He coughs and brings up some mucous, and Eric’s stomach swirls nervously.  He thinks about calling Tina, but doesn’t want to worry her if he doesn’t have to.  Just a virus, he thinks, and keeps his hand on his son’s thin shoulder.  When Brady falls asleep and his breathing stays easy, Eric feels better.  
  
Vince and Katie arrive around 4:30, just after Brady’s finished coughing up what sounds like an entire lung.  Eric’s crouched in front of him, his hand on Brady’s ribcage, feeling as much as listening to him breathe.  The doctor’s office is already closed; he knows because he just got the answering service when he called.  
  
“Hey, whoa, everything all right?” Vince asks.  
  
Katie climbs up onto the couch and sits on the back, something she knows she’s not supposed to do, but Eric doesn’t stop her because she’s looking down at Brady like she’s worried.  Eric glances up at Vince, and he can tell from Vince’s eyes that he must look pretty bad, too; the place is a wreck, Kleenex everywhere, empty juice glasses on the table, Brady’s favorite games and toys spread out around the couch.  Eric’s been trying to distract and comfort them both all day.  
  
Vince puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder, and Eric stands up, walks to the entryway with him, watches Katie trying to make Brady smile by making Mr. Bananas dance on the back of the couch.  
  
“Is he OK?” Vince asks.  
  
“I think I’m going to take him to the E.R.,” Eric says quietly, because he doesn’t want to scare the kids.  
  
“Let me call Dr. Rogers.”  
  
Eric nods after a second, because it’s worth trying if it spares them a trip to the hospital.  Brady is terrified of the doctor to begin with, and Eric’s not crazy about having to trek out anyway to see some stranger.  
  
Vince goes to the kitchen to call the doctor, and then he pokes his head out the door.  “Thirty minutes,” he says, and Eric feels relieved.  He realizes what he really wants here is for someone else to tell him what to do, or for someone to share in the decision-making.  If Brady needs to go to the hospital, he’ll do it in a heartbeat; he just wants to be sure he’s doing the right thing.  
  
“Katie,” Vince calls, and Katie sits up from where she’s playing with Brady’s Gameboy on the floor.  “You wanna make a pizza with me?”  
  
Katie shrugs, but she also smiles.  “I guess,” she says, and disappears into the kitchen.  Eric stays sitting by Brady, wondering what exactly Vince — who can’t cook — is up to.  
  
The doctor arrives earlier than expected and Eric wakes Brady.  He listens to his chest and looks at his throat, asks for a detailed report on the stuff he’s been coughing up, and then listens again to Brady’s wheezing.  “Bronchitis,” Dr. Rogers says.  “Not a lot of fun, but very treatable.  I’ll write you a prescription, something to knock this out, and leave an inhaler to ease the coughing, how about that?”  
  
Brady’s already dozing again on the couch.  “So he doesn’t need to go to the hospital?”  
  
“If his fever gets anywhere close to 105 or if he has trouble breathing, then call me or take him there, yes, but for right now — it looks like you’re doing everything right.”  
  
Eric almost feels teary, he’s so relieved.  Rogers hands over the prescription and Eric shakes his hand, and Vince surfaces briefly from the kitchen to thank him, as well.  “What’d he say?” he asks.  He has something red splattered across his shirt.  
  
“He’s gonna be OK,” he says.  “He prescribed some stuff and left an inhaler for now to help with the coughing.”  Eric’s still holding the prescription in his hand.  “I should go pick this up.”  
  
“We’ll get delivery,” Vince says.    
  
Eric looks up at him, then nods.  “What’s all over your shirt?”  
  
“Pizza sauce,” Vince says.  “You had some frozen dough, we’ve been making pizza.  I called Johnny for directions, don’t worry.”  He puts his arm around Eric’s shoulders, and Eric lets him lead him back to the armchair.  “Let’s get him in bed, OK?”  
  
“I want him close by,” Eric says as he sinks into the chair.  Brady’s sleeping, and there’s a rattle to his breathing but he looks OK.  His color is fine.  “I should call Tina.”  
  
“That, I can’t help with,” Vince says, “but here’s what I can do.  I’m going to get the medicine delivered.  You stay with him.  Katie and I will bring you some food, and then, you can go to bed and I’ll sit up with him.”  
  
“Vin -”  
  
“I got it,” Vince says, and he rubs Eric’s shoulder.  Eric barely keeps himself from resting his head against Vince’s stomach, he’s so grateful.  “Lemme help, all right?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, quietly, and squeezes Vince’s arm.  “Thanks, man.”  
  
After he’s returned to the kitchen, Eric picks up the phone and dials Tina.  She sounds happy when she answers, and he realizes she must think it’s one of the kids calling.  “Uh, hey, it’s Eric.”  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“Brady’s sick,” he says, and before Tina can gasp or ask, he adds, “but he’s OK, he’s going to be OK.”  He tells her the details of the doctor’s visit and then the two days before this.  She asks questions — not judging his care, just parental curiosity questions, and he realizes at some point that she’s probably going to run all of the medical stuff by Gary.  He decides he doesn’t mind; in fact, having a doctor in the family will probably be a good thing for the kids.    
  
When he’s finished, she says, “Oh, our poor baby.  How is he now?”  
  
There’s a tenderness in her voice that Eric hasn’t heard in a long time.  “He’s resting,” Eric says.  “Sleeping pretty good, at least.”  
  
“He always has been a good sleeper.”  Eric smiles a little at that, because it’s true.  Though Brady is sometimes hard to get to sleep, once there, he’s always been a through-the-night guy.  “Is there anything I can do?” she asks.  “I wish I was there, I’m so sorry.”  
  
The truth is, it would be easier if Tina was there.  For all of their sniping, for all of his regrets, they were good parents together.  When one kid was sick, they did a great job of dividing things up, making sure everyone was getting the attention needed and managing to spell each other so that they didn’t get as worn out.  So he knows he could twist the knife, right now, and tell her exactly how much her kids need her at the moment, but he doesn’t feel like it.  “We’re doing OK,” he says.  “Really.  Don’t worry.  I even got Julia Bachman to take Katie to school.”  
  
“I bet she was only too happy to oblige,” Tina says, but in a teasing way, not being combative.  Julia’s crush has been a joke between them for years.  And for a minute, they’re able to talk, just talk, not in the stilted, hurt, cautious way they usually do these days but in the way they used to — in a way that means maybe someday they’ll actually be friends again.    
  
“Seriously, Eric, you sound beat,” she says, and he almost laughs.  It’s painful and nice in equal measures that she can still notice these things.  “I can come up this weekend, if you guys need me.”  
  
He rubs his neck.  “It’s all right,” he says.  “Uh, Vince is here, he’s helping out.”  
  
There’s a pause that he can’t read, and then she says, “That’s good.  The kids like him.  I’m — glad you have some support.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eric says.  He clears his throat, looks over to make sure Brady’s still asleep.  “About that,” he starts.  
  
“We should talk,” she says at the same time.  “Not now, I know you’ve got stuff going on, but — look, we should just, we should figure out what to say to the kids sometime.  OK?”  
  
“OK,” he says.  He stands up.  “Katie’s here, you want to talk to her?”  
  
“Yeah.  Thank you.”  
  
“Sure.  And I’ll keep you updated, OK?  Maybe he can call tomorrow.”  
  
“That would be nice.”  
  
Katie’s sitting on the kitchen counter, helping Vince cut a square pizza into slices, and Eric helps her down and hands the phone over, tells her to take it into her room if she doesn’t want to stay in the kitchen.  Katie scampers out, and Eric steps up next to Vince.  
  
“This looks interesting,” he says, staring down at the pizza.  The crust is a little burnt on one side, but otherwise it seems OK — though the mixture of toppings, which seems to include pineapple and bits of lunchmeat over yellow and white cheese, seems dubious.  
  
“She worked really hard,” Vince says, his hand resting on Eric’s back.  “So pretend you love it.”  
  
“Is that turkey?”  
  
“Ham,” he says.  “Which, by the way, what, you can’t afford the stuff from the deli?”  
  
“They like the package stuff better.”  
  
“Mm.  How’s the ex?”  
  
“Worried,” Eric says.  He peels a toasted piece of cheese off the crust.  “But OK, actually.  She was pretty good, we got along OK.”  He crunches on the cheese, which is good, and looks up to find Vince staring at him.  “What?”  
  
“You look awful.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“I mean it, E.  Go to bed, and I’ll keep an eye on Brady tonight.  All right?”  
  
“Maybe,” Eric agrees.  Bed does sound pretty good; he feels sleep-woozy just thinking about it.  And if Vince is willing to watch over his son, well, Eric’s willing to let him.  He could use the help, clearly.  He rests his head on Vince’s shoulder, and Vince kisses the top of his head.  “Do you mind helping out tomorrow, some, too?”  
  
“Whatever you need,” Vince says.


	4. Chapter 4

Eric does go to bed that night, and Vince reports in the morning that he got up twice with Brady, to give him his medicine once and to get him a drink another time.  Eric gets Katie out to the carpool with lunch money, and then he and Vince take turns waiting on Brady through the day.  Eric even manages to get a little reading done, while both Brady and Vince are napping in the afternoon.  That night, Vince helps Katie with her social studies project and then he goes to bed in Eric’s room and Eric stretches out on the floor in Brady’s room, where Brady manages to sleep almost all the way through the night.  Eric wakes up with a start to the sound of the front door opening, and he’s momentarily panicked, sure someone’s breaking in or one of the kids is breaking out.  In the living room, he sees Vince sitting on the couch, rubbing his eyes, and hears noises from in the kitchen.  When he looks inside, he sees Drama, mixing something in a bowl at the counter.  
  
“Waffles,” he says, as though that explains everything, and Eric turns back to the living room.  
  
“I called him,” Vince says, shrugging.  “I thought Brady might eat something if he made it.”  He’s wearing a rumpled T-shirt and a borrowed pair of pajama pants and looks like he just woke up.  It’s already 8.    
  
“Where — what —”  
  
“Don’t worry, I got Katie to her carpool,” he says, and rubs his face.  “Chrissy’s mom’s a piece of work, huh?”  
  
Eric gapes at him.  “You went out there looking like that?”  
  
“Nah,” Vince says.  “I went in just my shorts.” Eric stares until Vince laughs.  “Kidding, kidding, geez.  I stayed back in the lobby and sent her out, and then Chrissy’s mom sent her back in to see if you needed anything.”  He rolls his eyes.  “I don’t think she just meant casseroles.”  
  
“Did you give Katie a lunch?”  
  
“I gave her a twenty,” Vince says, and Eric laughs.  
  
“I’m gonna take a shower,” he says, and almost invites Vince to join him.  
  
Once he’s cleaned up, he makes it back to the living room, where Brady’s now sitting on the couch, eating a waffle.  Vince has one broad hand on Brady’s little back.  Eric stops in the doorway.  
  
“You don’t have to eat the whole thing if you don’t want to,” Vince says.  
  
“OK,” Brady says, and Vince sets the plate on the coffee table.  
  
“You feel OK?” Vince asks, rubbing Brady’s back.   
  
Brady shrugs.  “Can I take a bath?”  
  
“Sounds like an OK plan,” Vince says.  
  
Eric steps forward.  “I’ll help you, buddy,” he says, and Brady turns and looks at him and nods.  “Come on.”  
  
So he gets Brady through the bath and into clean sweats, and then he tucks him into his bed with a book.  “You still sleepy?” he asks, his hand on Brady’s forehead.  
  
“Kinda.”  He doesn’t feel so warm anymore.  “Can I read some?”  
  
“Sure, pal.”  Eric kisses his forehead and leaves him to his book.  Maybe the worst is over.  
  
The living room looks like a tornado hit, still, blankets strewn over the couch, toys and books in little heaps around the floor.  He starts straightening things up, gets the floor cleared and then picks up the blanket to fold.  As he’s doing that, he hears the kitchen door open, then feels Vince’s arms slide around his waist from behind.  Eric straightens up, and Vince rests his cheek against Eric’s head.  Eric drops the blanket on the couch.   “He’s gonna be fine,” Vince says, and Eric nods and puts his hands on Vince’s wrists.  He believes it, now.  “He sleeping?”  
  
Eric shrugs.  “He’s laying down, reading.  I think, he seems like he’s out of the woods, at least.  It’s easier to breathe.”  
  
Vince is rocking a little, and Eric is surprised at how soothing he finds it.  “Johnny’s making chicken soup.”  
  
Eric laughs.  “That’s really nice.”  
  
“I thought I’d see if he’ll stick around, maybe make some cookies with Katie.”  
  
Eric turns around in his arms, looks up at Vince.  This is more than Vince just being sweet, this is more than him just trying to make Eric happy.  Vince really cares for the kids.  He’s really trying to make things better.  “Thank you,” he says, and kisses Vince gently.  
  
“E,” Vince murmurs, touching his cheek, and he puts their foreheads together.  
  
“You have that party tonight?” Eric asks.  
  
“I canceled,” Vince says.  “You want me to pick Katie up from school?”  
  
“That would be great,” he says.  “And stay, tonight, if you want.”  
  
He nods, and kisses Eric again, then takes a step back.  “You mind if I hit your shower?”  
  
“All yours,” Eric says.  “And anything you need from my closet.”  
  
While Vince is getting cleaned up, Eric goes into the kitchen, where Drama’s stirring a big pot on the stove.  “The best broth,” he says, when Eric asks what’s up, “comes from a whole chicken.”  
  
“There’s a whole chicken in there?”  
  
He nods.  “I consulted my butcher.”  He sets the spoon down, then turns to Eric.  “How’s the little guy?”  
  
“He’s OK.”  Eric clears his throat.  “Seriously, Drama, thank you.  I can’t — I’ll pay you back for whatever you bought, but — man.  This is really awesome.”  
  
Drama shrugs.  “I figure these kids are about as close as I’m gonna get to a niece and nephew.”  
  
Eric laughs, abruptly.  Even though the guys know about him and Vince — even though they’ve been really cool about it — it still surprises him every time one of them says something like that.  “Vince, uh, he said you might hang out, make some cookies?”  
  
“I’m gonna make a run to the store,” he says.  “What’s Brady’s favorite?”  
  
“Chocolate,” Eric says, then shrugs when Drama presses for specifics.  “Honestly, anything you make with chocolate’s gonna go over like magic.”  
  
“Kids are so easy to please,” Drama says, and he shakes his head.  “Take care, man, OK?  I’ll be back after a bit.”  
  
After Drama’s gone, Eric sits down and decides to take it easy for a while.  The last thing he needs is to come down with a cold himself.  He flips on the television, and once Vince is out of the shower, they sit and watch that together for a while.  Eric checks on Brady and finds him sleeping, wakes him briefly to give him his medication, and then sends Vince out after Katie.  He gets back around the time Drama does, and Drama makes her into his chef’s assistant for the rest of the afternoon before cutting out, again, around 6.  
  
“But don’t worry,” Katie says, wearing a little apron and everything, “he told me exactly what I have to do.”  
  
They eat dinner around seven, when Katie says the soup is ready.  Vince helps her get it ready while Eric gets Brady to the table, and he makes sure to produce the best noises possible about the quality of the food.  Katie beams, and Eric grins back at her.  “This is wonderful, sweetheart,” Eric says after he’s finished a second bowl of soup and several chocolate-chip cookies.  “Thank you.”  
  
He leaves her under Vince’s supervision while he takes Brady back to bed, where he administers his nighttime doses and leaves him to read himself to sleep.  By the time he gets back out, the table is clear and Katie is nowhere to be seen; Eric finds Vince in the kitchen next to a sink full of dishes and soapy water, which is really unusual.  
  
“Seriously,” he says, “you’ve done enough, man, don’t kill yourself.”  He puts one hand on Vince’s arm and smiles affectionately.  “I have a dishwasher.”  
  
Vince nods.  One of his hands is wet and red, and Eric can see steam rising off the dishwater.  He shakes his head, because he can guess exactly what happened: a tub of hot water can burn like nothing else.  “Is Brady OK?”  
  
“Yeah,” Eric says.  “Already in bed.”  He picks up Vince’s hand, which is hot to the touch.  “Jesus,” he murmurs, and kisses the back of Vince’s fingers.  
  
“You shouldn’t,” Vince says quietly, and Eric looks up.  Vince clears his throat, and his eyes shift away nervously.  “Katie, uh, saw us.”  
  
Eric freezes.  “What?”  
  
“She just — she just told me.  She saw me kiss you earlier this week, I guess.”  Eric draws back completely.  “She wanted to know if I was your boyfriend.”  
  
It’s plain on Vince’s face, but he has to ask.  “And you said yes.”  
  
“I said yes.”  
  
“Huh.”  He takes a deep breath.  “Where is she now?”  
  
“In her room, doing her homework,” Vince says.  “We made a deal, she’s not going to tell anyone.”  
  
Eric rubs his own neck.  His stomach is whirling with dread.  Take it back, he thinks, take it back take it back.  “You made a deal.”  
  
“She, uh, she said she kissed some boy on the cheek.  Troy something.  And she told me, if I didn’t tell about that, she wouldn’t tell about us kissing.”  
  
“Why —” he stops and presses one hand to his forehead.  He needs to think, to get focused, to get it together.  “Why didn’t she ask me?”  
  
Vince shrugs, then says, quietly, “She said you’d say she was too young to talk about kissing and stuff.”  
  
“Because she is too young,” Eric says.  He hears the fury in his own voice, even though it’s still quiet; Vince must hear it, too, because he backs up until he’s against the other counter.  “She’s nine.  She shouldn’t be kissing boys or thinking about boys or thinking about —” and he looks up at Vince and Vince flinches.  
  
“I didn’t tell her, E,” he says, keeping his voice down.  “She asked.”  
  
“She’s  _nine_ ,” he says again.  “When she asked, you could have told her anything.  You didn’t have to —”  
  
“Dad?”  
  
Brady’s in the doorway, holding Mr. Bananas in one hand, his hair spiking up on one side of his head.  
  
“Hey, kiddo,” Eric says, turning, his tone instantly bright, trying very hard not to sound like he’s just been yelling or upset.  God, just what he needs, for the kids to think he’s fighting with Vince, now.  Brady walks toward them and leans up against the counter next to Vince, his head resting unselfconsciously against Vince’s hip.  Vince rests his hand on top of Brady’s head, then slides it down to his shoulder.  
  
“You OK?” he asks as Brady snuggles closer.  Brady nods.  “You need something?”  
  
“No,” Brady says.  “Can I stay out here?”  
  
Vince looks over at Eric.  He looks worried and puzzled, and his face is still flushed from the anger of a moment ago.  Eric feels about the same way.  “Brady,” Eric says, “are you feeling all right?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says.  He’s hooked one arm around Vince’s leg, now.  Vince pats his back, shooting Eric another curious glance, then gently crouches so he’s on Brady’s level.  It surprises Eric when Brady puts his arms around Vince’s neck, monkey and all, because Brady’s not usually this demonstrative anymore.  
  
“What’s up, pal?” Vince asks, rubbing his back.  
  
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Brady says.  
  
“Why not?  Not tired?”  Eric asks.  Brady shrugs.  “Is something wrong?  You need some water?”  
  
He shrugs again.  “Being sick can be kind of scary, huh?” Vince says.  Brady shrugs, then finally nods.  “You want someone to stay with you?”  He nods again, and Vince looks up at Eric.  He’s asking, Eric can tell; he thinks Eric’s on the verge of kicking him out.  And maybe, before this, he was.  
  
“Go ahead,” Eric says very quietly.  
  
Vince picks Brady up easily, and Brady never loses his grip on Vince or his monkey.  Eric feels Brady’s neck; he’s a little warm, but better than the last few days.  
  
“You already gave him his medicine?” he asks Eric.  
  
“Yeah,” Eric says.  He rests his hand on Brady’s back and kisses his arm.  “Get some sleep, pal, all right?”  
  
As they walk down the hall, Eric follows them, and when Vince carries Brady into his room, Eric turns into Katie’s.  She’s sitting on her bed, already in her pajamas, reading a library book.  She looks up as he walks in, and he closes the door.  
  
“I already brushed my teeth,” she says, and grins wide, as if he can see.  “And my homework’s all done.”  
  
“That’s good,” he says.  He takes a seat on the side of her bed, takes the book, and gets her tucked in.  When she’s settled back, he pauses for a moment, not sure of what to say.  He settles, finally, on the obvious.  “So I hear you had a talk with Vince.”  She nods.  “You wanna tell me what that was about?”  
  
She looks away from him, and her fingers toy with the hair on back of a stuffed cat.  “I guess, last week?  When we were at Uncle Vince’s house, and we were supposed to be watching the movie?  But I didn’t like it, because I saw it before at Stephanie’s, so I was going to get some milk, because I can’t have soda before bedtime, and I went in the kitchen and Uncle Vince was kind of hugging you, and I thought maybe you were sad, but then you laughed, and you turned around and you kissed him.”  
  
Eric nods.  He remembers this, a little, in the kitchen last week.  Stupid, he thinks, and shakes his head.  “So you asked Vince about it?”  She nods.  “Did you ask anyone else?”  
  
“No,” she says.  “I kept it secret all week.  I almost asked Uncle Johnny today, but I decided to talk to Uncle Vince instead because he’s really good with secrets.”  She finally looks back at him.  “Are you mad?”  
  
“No, honey, I’m not mad at you.”  And he’s not.  He’s mad at himself, and he’s mad at Vince, a little, because they were careless, but that’s got nothing to do with Katie.  Eric keeps looking at her wide, trusting eyes, and he can tell she expects him to say more.  He just doesn’t know what to say.  There’s so much he could say, but everything he can think of starts with an apology: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.  I’m sorry I’m not still married to your mom.  I’m sorry I can’t give you a perfect, normal life.  I’m sorry —  He looks away, because he can feel himself getting a little teary.  
  
“It’s OK, Daddy,” she says, one of her hands landing on his forearm.  “See, before I was worried, because Mommy has Gary but you didn’t have anybody to keep you company when we go visit Mommy.  But now you have Uncle Vince, so that’s OK.”  
  
Eric smiles, almost laughs.  “I’m glad it’s OK,” he says.  
  
“I like Uncle Vince a lot.”  
  
He nods.  “I do, too,” he says.  “Do you, um, do you have any questions you want to ask?  Or anything you want to talk about?”  
  
She shrugs.  “Have you kissed a lot of boys?”  
  
Eric shakes his head.  “No, honey.”  
  
“Do you still love Mommy?”  
  
Eric sighs.  “Baby, I’ll always love your mother, because she gave me you and your brother, OK?  But she and I — we just can’t live together anymore.”  
  
“Because she’s with Gary and you’re with Uncle Vince.”  Katie frowns, and Eric feels alarmed.  “Is he still my uncle if he’s your boyfriend, too?”  
  
It sounds funny, hearing  _boyfriend_  come from his daughter.  “I’m sure you can still call him that, if you want to,” Eric says.  “Or you can just call him Vince.”  
  
“What do you call him?”  
  
“I call him Vince.”  
  
“Do you ever call him honey?”  
  
Eric grins.  “No.  I call him Vince.  But you can call him honey.”  
  
She smiles back.  “Are you going to get married?”  
  
“Oh, kiddo,” he says.  He’s not ready to start that talk, either.  Jesus, so many talks to have, about all the stupid careless mean shit in the world.  “You know what, not right now.  Because, you know how we’ve talked about how Uncle Vince is a movie star?”  She nods.  “Well, so, if people find out that he and I — that we’re — it’s just kind of complicated,” he says.  “It’s sort of a grown-up thing.”  
  
Katie rolls her eyes. “Dad, I’m  _nine_ ,” she says.  
  
“I know, I know.  I meant — well, we’re just, we’re kind of keeping it a secret right now.  OK?  Because we work together, and that’s one of those grown-up things, that when you work with someone, you’re not supposed to be boyfriend-girlfriend, or, uh, whatever.”  
  
Katie nods, looking very serious.  “Like how Miss Miller used to be the first-grade teacher and then she married Mr. Perry and now she teaches in the fifth grade school, so I could have her again next year.”  
  
“Yes,” Eric says, remembering Mr. Perry, her assistant principal.  “Sort of like that.”  
  
Katie grabs his hand.  “Don’t worry, Daddy, I won’t tell anybody.  I don’t want Uncle Vince to have to move.”  
  
Eric smiles, and bends and kisses her forehead.  “I just want you to know,” he says, “that we can talk about anything. OK?  You don’t have to worry about asking me stuff, about this or about anything.  I’m your dad and I love you.”  
  
“I love you, too,” she says.  He watches her close her eyes and get settled in, then he gets up, turns out the light, and closes the door.  
  
Brady’s door is closed, too, and Eric opens it slowly.  He sees Vince sitting in the bean-bag chair, his hand on Brady’s bed, Brady’s hands curled around it.  Vince looks up, but Eric can’t see his expression in the dark.  He puts his hands together and leans his head against them, miming sleep, and Vince nods.  Eric points to the hall, and Vince holds up a finger, as if to say he needs a minute, so Eric steps back, leaving the door open.  He goes back to his room, not sure yet what he wants to say, and starts getting ready for bed.  As he brushes his teeth, he thinks, Katie seemed, well, OK, with everything.  She seemed actually sort of happy.  And he can’t believe it, yet, that he’s going to just get off this easily, but the kids really do love Vince.  They always have.  And he — well, Eric has no doubt that Vince loves them, too.  
  
He leaves the bathroom, a little surprised not to find Vince in his room.  He pulls his shirt up over his head, finds his pajamas in the chair where he left them, and starts changing.  Vince walks in just as he’s got his pants on, and he points at the bathroom.  Eric nods, still operating in the usual post-bedtime silence that they almost always observe when the kids have just gone to bed.  Once they’re out, they can sleep through anything, but the first twenty minutes or so are critical.  
  
Vince takes a long time in the bathroom, and Eric can tell by the long run of the sink that he’s stalling.  He probably thinks Eric’s still mad.  Eric sits on his side of the bed.  He doesn’t have the energy for anger, nor the will for it.  Vince has spent the last couple of days being kind — no, being downright wonderful, to him and his kids, and the kids love him and Eric loves him.  Not everything has to be such a fight, he decides.  If this is the thing he does that’s most likely to screw up his kids, well, at least he’s going to set a good example of how a good adult relationship can be.  At least he can show them what it means to really love someone, like he does Vince.  
  
Vince finally walks out, and stands awkwardly in the bathroom doorway.  “Brady all right?” Eric asks.  
  
“Yeah,” Vince says, “just freaked out.  He held my hand the whole time he was falling asleep.”  Vince swallows.  “Katie?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says.  “She’s fine.”  
  
Vince nods.  He shifts from one foot to the other, and Eric is amused, just a little, at his nervousness.  “She get her homework done?”  
  
“Yeah,” Eric says.  He sets his alarm clock, then looks up and over at Vince.  “Are you staying?”  
  
Vince actually staggers back a step.  “What?”  
  
Eric shakes his head.  “What’d you think was going to happen?”  
  
Vince sits on the other side of the bed.  “I thought — I figured you were going to flip out.”  
  
He laughs quietly.  “I am kind of flipping out,” he admits.  “But — I don’t know.”  He swings his legs up onto the bed and pats the space beside him, so Vince crawls up next to him and sits against the headboard.  His eyes are kind of wide, this close up.  It’s not unattractive.  “The last few days, I don’t think I could’ve made it without you,” he says, his hand resting on the comforter just next to Vince’s thigh.  “You being here — it’s made it easier, but it’s also made it, uh — don’t take this wrong, OK?”  
  
“OK,” Vince says quietly, resting his hand on Eric’s leg.    
  
Eric looks down at it, and he says exactly what’s been on his mind for the last few days.  “I felt like I was married again,” he says, and looks over.    
  
Vince’s eyes are still wide, but he doesn’t look scared, or freaked out.  He looks, well, he looks surprised, and then he wets his lips and says, “E,” in a very gentle, almost touched, voice.  
  
Eric looks down, and his hand slides on top of Vince’s.  “Are you staying?” he asks again.  
  
“Yes,” Vince says, and Eric smiles, just a little.  Vince kisses Eric’s neck, and sets his other hand on Eric’s.  “Married, huh?”  
  
“Yeah,” Eric says, cupping Vince’s cheek, smiling kind of idiotically now.  “So get ready to have even less sex than usual.”  
  
Vince laughs against Eric’s mouth.  “Yeah, yeah,” he says, and kisses him.  Eric kisses back for a minute, then gently pushes Vince away.  Vince stretches out beside Eric, looking up at him, grinning.  
  
“There are still gonna be rules,” he says, unsettled by the bright smile.  
  
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Vince says.  
  
“Brady doesn’t know.”  Vince nods.  “And I think — I still think it’s not a bad idea to keep things pretty quiet.”  
  
“E, I’m not going to jump you in front of the kids,” Vince says.  “Seriously.”  
  
Eric nods.  “OK.”  He feels the nervousness of earlier returning, and he’s tempted, for a minute, to ask Vince to sleep on the couch.  But — he doesn’t want Vince to sleep on the couch.  He wants him to sleep right here, next to Eric, for an entire night.  Eric slides down into bed, resting on his back, and Vince looks over at him.   
  
“So — how did the talk with Katie go?” Vince asks.  
  
Eric shrugs.  “She’s really taking it well.  She wanted to know if we’re getting married.”  Vince laughs quietly.  “She also, uh, she said she was happy, she said she’d been worried before that I was lonely.”  He shakes his head, takes a second to arrange his pillow so he doesn’t have to look at Vince.  “Fuck, I’m supposed to worry about them, not the other way around.  You know?”  
  
“Maybe you’ve genetically passed on the ability to worry when there’s really no need,” Vince says.  “And hey, look on the bright side.  She’s not worried anymore, right?  Because she knows you’ve got me.”  
  
“I do,” Eric says, and he looks down and can’t help smiling.  He kisses Vince, and he’s surprised by how OK it feels, to be here in his own bed, his kids just down the hall, Vince lying there next to him.  “She also wanted to know if she should still call you Uncle Vince.”  
  
“What’d you say?”  
  
“I said it was up to her.”  
  
“I swear,” Vince says, sounding totally earnest, “E, I will be the best step-dad ever.”  
  
Eric smiles.  “Are we gonna have a ‘Jerry Maguire’ moment?  You were never this interested in me before Katie.”  
  
Vince scoffs.  “I was always interested,” he says, and Eric’s smile widens.  “And I’m always gonna be interested.”  
  
“Well, for tonight, keep the interest to yourself, all right?” Eric says, patting his chest affectionately.  “We gotta keep the door open in case Brady needs anything.”  
  
“Is he staying home again tomorrow?”  
  
“It’s Saturday, so I’d say yes,” Eric says.    
  
Vince laughs.  “Ten bucks says Chrissy’s mom still shows up looking for you.”  
  
“Mm, jealousy,” Eric says.  “Y’know, I think I like that.”  
  
“Get used to it,” Vince says.  
  
“I think I will.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The next morning they all have breakfast together.  Brady’s feeling tons better, Eric can tell, because he sings them all a song at the table and tries to steal his sister’s French toast sticks.  Vince is in a good mood, too, and Eric feels strangely proprietary and pleased with the whole set up.  My little family, he thinks, helping Katie pour herself a new glass of juice.  
  
After they’ve all eaten, Katie goes to her room to call Stephanie and Chrissy to make plans for later in the day, and Brady settles in on the couch.  He’s not running a fever, which means he’ll probably get to go back to school Monday, something he seems excited about.  Vince follows Eric into the kitchen while he cleans up, and then says, somewhat nervously, Eric thinks, “Do you want me to stick around?”  
  
The thing is — he does, and he doesn’t.  He feels like he’s out of the woods with Brady, so he doesn’t need Vince’s help.  And after yesterday’s big revelation, Eric thinks he should probably take a little time away, just to remind Katie that he and Vince aren’t really married and all of that.  So he says, “If you need to head out, I think I’m cool.”  
  
“E, I don’t  _need_  to be anywhere,” Vince says.  “I’m asking you, should I stay?  Do you want me to stick around?”  
  
Eric looks over and smiles.  “Yeah,” he says.  “I do.  But there’s a catch.”  Vince raises an eyebrow.  “You stick around, you’re learning how to load the dishwasher.”  
  
“I can do that,” Vince says.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Monday, both kids go back to school, healthy and happy, and Eric, instead of starting in on everything he’s fallen behind on, goes to Vince’s place.  They end up in Vince’s bed almost without even talking about it, and afterwards, Eric cleans up and puts his shorts back on, then sits against the headboard.  “You know,” he says, looking down at Vince, “it’s all going to change, now.  You get that, right?”  
  
“I get some of it,” Vince says.  He sits up, too.  “Is Tina gonna make a fuss?”  
  
Eric shrugs.  “It depends on what happens.”  
  
“What do you —”  
  
“Lemme play out the worst-case for you.”  
  
“Because that’s what you do.”  
  
Eric nods, just once.  “Katie only tells her best friend.  But she tells her in the car, so Chrissy’s mom overhears.”  
  
“Yeah, nightmare,” Vince says, teasing, but Eric keeps going.  
  
“Julia mentions it to Carol or Cindy at dance practice.”  
  
“I get it,” Vince says.  “Pretty soon the whole school knows.”  
  
“Pretty soon the whole world knows.  Who do you think goes to that school?  I got the recommendation from Ari.”  
  
Vince rolls his eyes.  “OK.  So.  Everybody knows.  I don’t care.”  
  
Eric shakes his head.  “That might even be true,” he says, “but it’s not the point.  The point is, suddenly everybody knows that you’ve got kids at Wilshire Day.”  
  
Vince frowns.  “You really think people would bother —”  
  
“Worst case?  Yes,” Eric says.  “Yes, I do.  And even if it’s not, say, the paparazzi staking them out at school, it’s gonna be them staking us out at home.  Or when we go shopping.  Or when you take Katie to the park, or show up at her swim meet.  It’s gonna be my kids on the cover of People magazine.  And it won’t take a lot of that for Tina to say, maybe they’d be better off in San Diego.”  Eric can’t look at Vince as he says the next part.  “It won’t take a lot of that for me to agree.”  
  
Vince clears his throat.  “So there’s gotta be something we can do.  I mean, people have kids in Hollywood all the time.”  
  
Eric shrugs.  “I don’t know the answer to this.  But, if you’re serious — if you don’t care about people knowing — then I think we’ve got to pull Ari and Shauna in on this as soon as possible.”  
  
“OK.”  
  
“Like today.”  
  
“OK,” Vince says.  “E, seriously.  I’m —”  
  
“Don’t say it.”  Eric shakes his head.  If he hears Vince apologize, he thinks he might fucking break.  He’s anxious, he’s worried, he’s frightened, but he’s not going to be mad.  This is just how things are going to be, and they’re going to make it work.  
  
“I love you,” Vince says, after a minute.  “And the kids.  I’m not going to let this become something crazy, all right?”  
  
Eric smiles.  “I love that you think you have that power.”  
  
“E —”  
  
“Yeah,” he says.  “Look, I’m just saying — things are going to change.  And, if Katie knows now, if my kids are gonna know — then goddamn it, Vin, you ever fucking leave me and I swear to God —”  
  
“Don’t say it,” Vince echoes, and kisses him.


End file.
